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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5311347" data-attributes="member: 51942">To some extent, this is inevitable, and part of the fun of the game.  Sometimes entire encounters can be won before they even start just by saying the right thing to the right person - is that "overpowered"?  Or, if you push someone off a cliff into a pit of lava - that's a one-shot kill, even for a solo (though with reduced chance).  Sometimes, some choices simply will have an abnormally impact.But that's not to say it's a good thing all the time.  So, isn't the easy solution to just not permit those kind of things?  You can have a consistent world-view without the spell mud-to-rock, so, in the name of balance, why not just leave the spell out?  Or, in 4e style, make it a ritual that takes too long to be of use in any combat.It also means that this spells has far exceeded what other people in the group can accomplish.  Why ask the fighter to attack on enemy with a sword for 20 damage when you can do 500 points of damage to 10 different creatures with one spell?I guess if being "simulationist" means deciding on abilities purely on grounds of what sounds appropriate on a fantasy setting and seeing where it leads with no regard to the balance of the result, then clearly that's something that only possible at the cost of balance.But we can design a world and game with the consequences in mind, and decide beforehand that some abilities are incompatible with balance and should not be included.  In a sense, there's quite a few realistic things that are removed from D&D in quite that fashion.After all, creatures can survive multiple sword-blows and a coup-de-grace may leave no lasting mark.  That doesn't sound realistic.  But it doesn't have to be, as long as it's consistent (in game).  So, in 4e, a sword-blow is usually just a flesh-wound or a merely a jarring, exhausting shock to your armor, not particularly dangerous.  All such "wounds" are like that, and that makes it fine by me.Similarly, it doesn't matter if a 4e PC can jump "realistically" far, what matters is that the distance that can be jumped in determined in the same fashion when in the same circumstances; and that better jumpers jump further, particularly poor circumstance may decrease distance, etc.  It's the relative balance that matters.Get rid of the spell!  I don't think it harms believability at all, and it definitely helps balance.You're talking about an entirely different concept here, however.  This consistency you talk of is at a meta-game level.  At that level, consistency has lots of value in that it makes the rules simple, and no value in making the in-game world make sense.Ideally, we'd have both kinds of simplicity, of course.Right, so you're talking about keeping the rules for different situations similar.  That's a worthwhile aim, but this kind of meta-game consistency has entirely different benefits.  I agree that for the sake of simplicity, this kind of simplicity should generally outweigh in-game consistency for any minor details.This is the core of exception-based design.  You add a rule whenever you feel it's necessary to create a more detailed representation of the game; that could be for reasons of inherent verisimilitude or rules to keep the relative balance and tactics of the game functioning.The fewer rules the better; at what point it's worth it to add an exception for reasons of in-game consistency is a trade-off.But that trade-off isn't quite that simple. A rule could be particularly poor and removing it (enhancing meta-game consistency i.e. simplicity) also enhances in-game consistency.  Critically (to me) this isn't a zero-sum game, choosing poorly here can mean both poor in-game consistency and poor excessive meta-game complexity.D&D is not at all at the simple side of this spectrum.  We're talking about a game with a bunch of rules.  Lots of them.  And many are clearly inspired by a kind of verisimilitude.  Distances are measured in squares but have meaning in real-life measurements, and speeds for PC's are vaguely reasonable.  There's lots of talk about improvisation and skill checks and DC's for things that don't have a good meta-game representation and yet are still possible options.  This isn't a board game with a fixed number of legal moves.It's interesting you use this example, because the game does this to some extent.  D&D has a concept of typed damage; that's not really necessary and could be removed.  D&D has the concept of resistances and immunity to effects.  Some immunities are motivated by source (immune to charms, say) and others by consequence (immune to forced movement, say).  Different keywords work differently here too.On the one hand that's a roulette - and on the other hand it can be a source of tactical fun.Where do you draw the line?So, we have three flavors of consistency:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Realism: necessary to some extent to empathize with the PC's, but non-critical.  D&D PC's and NPC's are similar to us because this isn't way-out-there sci-fi.  That's a different game.  On the other hand, when the game uses terminology and concepts that mirror the real world, it's just confusing to get them wrong.  The game shouldn't try to copy the real world, but where it copies the real world, it should try to retain common sense.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In-game consistency: this is necessary to keep things believable.  Since the PC's may and are encouraged to try novel approaches to a problem, it's also crucial to keep the game flowing smoothly and not degrading into a (from the player's perspective) incomprehensible collection of DM fiats.  Ideally, the players should be able to predict what the DM will rule before he does so, particularly where there aren't any rules to help you.  It's better to completely outlaw an ability than to apply it inconsistently, here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Meta-game consistency:i.e. fewer exceptions and simpler gameplay.  This is critical to an extent, after all, the game must remain playable.  But not all sorts of complexity are created equal.  For instance, it's much more acceptable to have exceptions that apply only to particular PC's (e.g. feats, powers) or only in situations that are easy to look up (e.g. rules for flanking large creatures).</li> </ul>I'm convinced that it matters how you balance those three aspects; and that it's not a lost cause.So, I'm particularly critical of general rules that matter little (that's a waste of rule-space), or that could have been rephrased to be PC-specific (included in a class or feat). Also, I'm much more in favor of the rock-paper-scissors approach to balance than to mere equality(which strikes me as boring).So, it doesn't bother me much if a rule change makes PC's less equal so long as you can keep em balanced overall.  Honestly, I think that PC imbalances are much more due to poor class design and poor player choices that due to the fact that some monsters are particularly resistant or immune to a particular PC's preferred means of attack.  In fact, I like that.  It reduces grind!Adding rules has a cost.  Perhaps adding facing rules would help believability, but at what cost?  But there are areas where we can improve in-game consistency and perhaps even realism without adding new rules, or even with fewer rules than current RAW.In particular for distinctions the game already makes (such as having special rules for swarms) we might as well make them work.  A sign of a good rule is if it's similar to what the player expected before he's heard of the rule.  Given the fact that a swarm is "special" and has special rules at all: swarms getting less damage from melee attacks and more from area attacks?  That's good, people expect that intuitively.  Being immune specifically to forced movement by melee and ranged attacks is more along the lines of WTFBBQ.  It's oddly specific and entirely unexpected.  Not a good rule.</blockquote>

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