So I am running a campaign where the magical field is in flux. I am having my players roll percentile dice to determine what level the field is at. 1 to 33 is low tide, 34 to 67 is normal, and 68 to 100 high tide. When the magic field is at low tide magic does half of its effects, like a healing spell heals half of what it would normally heal, In the high tide magic spells, do double their effects. So would you all consider a breathe weapon to be a magical effect an/or ability or not?
It depends on the setting. If the dragons work like in GoT it's not a magical ability. You can even see the openings in their mouth where they produce the fire.
So it's more like a real-world flamethrower, and that isn't magic at all.
If the dragons work like in Skyrim, where they are actually speaking magical words that conjure the flame... yes, that's magic and would probably suffer from a dwindling magic field.
Since it is your setting, you decide. :-)
In the Forgotten Realms it's the flamethrower, though.
Long answer from the "Sage Advise Compendium", which is a collection of official rulings on how to interpret rules and game mechanics written by Jeremy Crawford (the D&D 5e's lead rules designer).
If you cast antimagic field, don armor of invulnerability, or use another feature of the game that protects against magical or nonmagical effects, you might ask yourself, “Will this protect me against a dragon’s breath?” The breath weapon of a typical dragon isn’t considered magical, so antimagic field won’t help you but armor of invulnerability will.
You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:
the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect
In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:
Is it a magic item?
Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
Is it a spell attack?
Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
Does its description say it’s magical?
If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.
Let’s look at a white dragon’s Cold Breath and ask ourselves those questions. First, Cold Breath isn’t a magic item. Second, its description mentions no spell. Third, it’s not a spell attack. Fourth, the word “magical” appears nowhere in its description. Our conclusion: Cold Breath is not considered a magical game effect, even though we know that dragons are amazing, supernatural beings.
So I am running a campaign where the magical field is in flux. I am having my players roll percentile dice to determine what level the field is at. 1 to 33 is low tide, 34 to 67 is normal, and 68 to 100 high tide. When the magic field is at low tide magic does half of its effects, like a healing spell heals half of what it would normally heal, In the high tide magic spells, do double their effects. So would you all consider a breathe weapon to be a magical effect an/or ability or not?
The more appropriate question would be:
Do you want the effectiveness of breath weapons to be influenced by the "tides"? If the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter what a breath weapon actually is, just change it.
Long answer from the "Sage Advise Compendium", which is a collection of official rulings on how to interpret rules and game mechanics written by Jeremy Crawford (the D&D 5e's lead rules designer).
If you cast antimagic field, don armor of invulnerability, or use another feature of the game that protects against magical or nonmagical effects, you might ask yourself, “Will this protect me against a dragon’s breath?” The breath weapon of a typical dragon isn’t considered magical, so antimagic field won’t help you but armor of invulnerability will.
You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:
the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect
In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:
Is it a magic item?
Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
Is it a spell attack?
Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
Does its description say it’s magical?
If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.
Let’s look at a white dragon’s Cold Breath and ask ourselves those questions. First, Cold Breath isn’t a magic item. Second, its description mentions no spell. Third, it’s not a spell attack. Fourth, the word “magical” appears nowhere in its description. Our conclusion: Cold Breath is not considered a magical game effect, even though we know that dragons are amazing, supernatural beings.
There may also be a consideration as to exactly what the flux in the magical field does. If it affects both the background energy and the concentrated energy (which could be possible, this is an imaginary world), then it would be possible for every magical creature to be affected as well. Using the dragon as an example, if the flux is at low tide, then the dragon itself would be half as powerful as normal. If the flux is at high tide, then the dragon would be twice as powerful as normal. This would then also apply to magical weapons/armor, basically anything that works on magic. Having said that, this would involve an enormous amount of work on behalf of the DM every time the flux changed, not to mention the difficulties in calculating damage (a +0.5 weapon at low tide?) and so on. I would not like to be the one working all that out.
So I am running a campaign where the magical field is in flux. I am having my players roll percentile dice to determine what level the field is at. 1 to 33 is low tide, 34 to 67 is normal, and 68 to 100 high tide. When the magic field is at low tide magic does half of its effects, like a healing spell heals half of what it would normally heal, In the high tide magic spells, do double their effects. So would you all consider a breathe weapon to be a magical effect an/or ability or not?
Mechanically, it is not.
It depends on the setting. If the dragons work like in GoT it's not a magical ability. You can even see the openings in their mouth where they produce the fire.
So it's more like a real-world flamethrower, and that isn't magic at all.
If the dragons work like in Skyrim, where they are actually speaking magical words that conjure the flame... yes, that's magic and would probably suffer from a dwindling magic field.
Since it is your setting, you decide. :-)
In the Forgotten Realms it's the flamethrower, though.
Short answer, no it's not.
Long answer from the "Sage Advise Compendium", which is a collection of official rulings on how to interpret rules and game mechanics written by Jeremy Crawford (the D&D 5e's lead rules designer).
Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical?
The more appropriate question would be:
Do you want the effectiveness of breath weapons to be influenced by the "tides"? If the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter what a breath weapon actually is, just change it.
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Thank you very much for your reply Depot that should be a lot of help going forward in this campaign.
Thank you to everyone who has responded and offered options in regards to this topic. Happy Gaming to everyone!!
Just wanted to mention - I love this idea and would have a blast playing in a campaign where magic has "tides." How awesome.
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There may also be a consideration as to exactly what the flux in the magical field does. If it affects both the background energy and the concentrated energy (which could be possible, this is an imaginary world), then it would be possible for every magical creature to be affected as well. Using the dragon as an example, if the flux is at low tide, then the dragon itself would be half as powerful as normal. If the flux is at high tide, then the dragon would be twice as powerful as normal.
This would then also apply to magical weapons/armor, basically anything that works on magic.
Having said that, this would involve an enormous amount of work on behalf of the DM every time the flux changed, not to mention the difficulties in calculating damage (a +0.5 weapon at low tide?) and so on. I would not like to be the one working all that out.
Homebrew: | Races | Items | Monsters | Spells | Backgrounds | Feats
I would say no it is not