Crazy Jerome
First Post
The difference is one of syntax and style.
I am wondering whether some players have a self-generated illusion that reading the old PHB spell descriptions is like paging through a wizard's spell book. If so, it's just an illusion, and a pretty obvious one at that. The wizard's spellbook is not going to talk about saving throws, hit points, rounds and turns of time, etc; and hopefully not about levels either.
Is the problem with the 4e syntax and style that it makes it obvious that the rulebook is a game tool, and not itself an element of the fiction? At least for my part, I've never played under any illusion to the contrary.
I disbelieve illusion (smirk), but suspect rather that the cause is free riding on better spells. The sleep spell is a pretty lousy support of the "write it out" position. I only typed it above to constrast with the later versions. Consider this one:
(BECMI) Hallucinatory Terrain
Range: 240'
Duration: Special
Effect: Changes or hides terrain in 240' radius (or less)
This spell creates the illusion of a terrain feature, either indoors (such as a pit, stairs, etc.) or outdoors (hills, swamp, grove of trees, etc.), possibly hiding a real feature. The caster could create the illusion of solid ground over a series of pits or quicksand pools, or he could create the image of dense forest over his army's camp, etc.
The caster may choose to place his hallucinatory terrain over a comparatively small area (for instance, a throne room) or over a much larger one (for example, a hill). If he chooses to cast the spell on a larger terrain feature, the entire feature to be affected must be within range of the spell. (A hill with greater than a 480' diameter would not be affected.)
The spell lasts until the illusion is touched by an intelligent creature, or until dispelled.
A lot more to that one! If you are reading through a list of spells, a head of steam from that kind of listing can take you right through the sleeps of the list (and clothform and stoneform and ironform ).
Despite my earlier sarcasm, I do think there is a place for both formats. You can't put all the details of that spell in a stat block, without either compromising the spell or making your stat blocks unwieldly.
If I were Mr. Spell Format Dictator for a day, what I'd do is cut out all the redundant text that is already handled in stat blocks, but keep the blocks simple as above. Then I'd insist that some spells have enough idiosyncratic features and flavor to deserve some longer text. In particular, I'd look for some that had some ambiguity built in, and thus required DM judgment. Then I'd shoot for a good mix of both. The straight-forward spells don't take much space. So you might go with a 60/40 split. The longer, ambiguous spells make up in character and flexibility what they lack in numbers. Then if individual groups want to gravitate towards one or the other, mostly or even exclusively, that is their call.
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