D&D General "Effect as per the spell"

[J-H]

As someone who writes stuff for publishing on the DM's Guild, I get it. Unfortunately, nobody wants an item description that takes an entire column.
Example:
A Legendary Trident of Poseidon lets you cast Water Whip at will, Tidal Wave 1x/LR, and Earthquake 1x/week.
Water Whip needs to be fully described because it's a monk power, and cast at 5d10 damage instead of the base. But does the item description really need all 360-something words of the Earthquake spell description? No.

 

[Deset Gled]

Maybe they don't want to worry about the legality of copying the exact text of the spell if not from the SRD and they don't want to draft original language that could be interpreted differently?

I actually prefer when abilities say "per the spell [whatever]" specifically so that things don't get interpreted differently. Consistency is very important to me. And it really does make the game go much smoother. Small changes to wording, even minor omissions, can have much larger effects that editors wouldn't notice until players try to exploit them.

 

[Lanefan]

I think we can presume ground rules in the system. And maybe it isn't a spell. Is a necklace of fireballs a "spell"?

No, it's a thrown missile that goes boom with much the same effect; and because it's not a spell, spell immunity to Fireball won't help if it hits you.

The example, though, specifically says the device casts fireball as per the spell, meaning spell immunity does help the target.

 

[dave2008]

In 4e, all creature statblocks included all details of a monster's actions relevant to combat. Non-combat considerations were left up to the DM's prerogative.

That wasn't entirely true though in 4e. Many monsters had to have a reduction in abilities (particularly if they were casters) to compensate for the all in the statblock mantra. This resulted in a serious reduction in options for a lot of monsters. So technically you could run the monster from the statblock, but it couldn't do a lot of things you were used to doing with that monster.

Personally I like the current 5e mantra of everything you need to run the monster in the statblock + some flavor spells if needed to round them out.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That wasn't entirely true though in 4e. Many monsters had to have a reduction in abilities (particularly if they were casters) to compensate for the all in the statblock mantra.

I see this as an absolute win. Having 17 things you can do where most of them aren't worthwhile in most cases is not useful. Having 3-4 things you can do, all of which are clearly useful to the caster in an actual life-or-death situation is "less is more" in action.

This resulted in a serious reduction in options for a lot of monsters. So technically you could run the monster from the statblock, but it couldn't do a lot of things you were used to doing with that monster.

Do you have any actual examples of this loss, and how it was detrimental to these creatures?

Personally I like the current 5e mantra of everything you need to run the monster in the statblock + some flavor spells if needed to round them out.

I have yet to actually see them implement this--and even if they did, "flavor spells" is exactly where DM purview should be at its height, I'd thought. Flavor is flavor. It can be freely chosen because whatever you choose should not have detrimental impact on the crunch beneath.

 

[dave2008]

I see this as an absolute win. Having 17 things you can do where most of them aren't worthwhile in most cases is not useful. Having 3-4 things you can do, all of which are clearly useful to the caster in an actual life-or-death situation is "less is more" in action.

Do you have any actual examples of this loss, and how it was detrimental to these creatures?

This was discussed at great length on the old WotC forums. I am not interested in getting into it again here. It absolutely was an issue for some people. It was not really an issue for me most of the time, but it did come up. Eventually I got good enough with 4e I could just improv a power on the fly. However, not everyone can do that.

I have yet to actually see them implement this--and even if they did, "flavor spells" is exactly where DM purview should be at its height, I'd thought. Flavor is flavor. It can be freely chosen because whatever you choose should not have detrimental impact on the crunch beneath.

I am not sure what you are not seeing implemented. The 4e style of relevant actions in the statblock has been the baseline in the last 3-4 books. I can post some if you like.

Now, 5e has not (I don't think) caught up with 4e in terms of monsters implementing tactical pressure (push, pulls, conditions, etc.). Though again, that was sometimes to much for me personally in 4e. I hope they can find a middle ground.

 

[Reynard]

As someone who writes stuff for publishing on the DM's Guild, I get it. Unfortunately, nobody wants an item description that takes an entire column.
Example:
A Legendary Trident of Poseidon lets you cast Water Whip at will, Tidal Wave 1x/LR, and Earthquake 1x/week.
Water Whip needs to be fully described because it's a monk power, and cast at 5d10 damage instead of the base. But does the item description really need all 360-something words of the Earthquake spell description? No.

Maybe the problem is the bloated and convoluted spell descriptions.

"When activated, the item causes the earth to shake violently within a 50 foot radius for one minute. The ground is considered difficult terrain within the area and creatures that start their turn in the area taked 4d10 force damage and are knocked prone (DC 15 Strength save half damage, not knocked prone)."

Long essays per spell or effect is an artifact of two generations of freelance writers getting paid per word.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe the problem is the bloated and convoluted spell descriptions.

"When activated, the item causes the earth to shake violently within a 50 foot radius for one minute. The ground is considered difficult terrain within the area and creatures that start their turn in the area taked 4d10 force damage and are knocked prone (DC 15 Strength save half damage, not knocked prone)."

Long essays per spell or effect is an artifact of two generations of freelance writers getting paid per word.

Yeah. I get that folks want some flavor in their spell descriptions, but it's been out of hand since at least 3e and 5e isn't better, at all.

Just the PHB spends 89 pages (201-289) explaining how to read spells and giving its spell descriptions. For comparison, it spends fewer pages on all the classes of the game (45-119, so 75 pages, including very high density of art) than it does on spell descriptions (half of page 211 to 289, so call it 78 pages, which have fewer and smaller pieces of art.)

There has to be a slimmer but still evocative middle ground. Of course, some of that might require the dreaded "J" word...

 

[J-H]

Some spells are pretty straightforward, like Burning Hands. Others are poorly worded. The higher level spells tend to be wordier because they can have more effects... think Prismatic Spray, Wish, or Earthquake.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah. I get that folks want some flavor in their spell descriptions, but it's been out of hand since at least 3e and 5e isn't better, at all.

Just the PHB spends 89 pages (201-289) explaining how to read spells and giving its spell descriptions. For comparison, it spends fewer pages on all the classes of the game (45-119, so 75 pages, including very high density of art) than it does on spell descriptions (half of page 211 to 289, so call it 78 pages, which have fewer and smaller pieces of art.)

There has to be a slimmer but still evocative middle ground. Of course, some of that might require the dreaded "J" word...

I do miss the jargon and iconographics of 4e at times.