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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6869884" data-attributes="member: 82106">Real system masters want a system that is well-defined, but they also want one that has lots of very complicated and obtuse mechanisms in it. There's no point in being the master of a system that can be fully grasped a 6 year old. This is why 3.x is so stupidly full of power gaming options. The rules are incredibly obtuse and convolved and include masses of options that can be juxtaposed in infinite combinations to cause rules breakage/bendage. 4e is a LOT more nailed down, because it lacks the obtuseness of 3.x and while there are a LOT of options you have many fewer ways to combine them all, and those ways are restricted through limiting gateways like the hybrid and MC systems. Even so there's still a good bit of mastery there, but it tends to be a lot more clear how you would accomplish specific things. Even casual players can achieve pretty good results if they put modest efforts into it. 5e, I agree, isn't really a mastery type of game, its a DM playing game. The rules are vague, AND very open-ended in terms of what any given game element does. For instance my Wizard is a dwarf transmuter and has Stone Shape. He's also got masonry and carpentry as part of his background (he's tool proficient in both areas). So I feel pretty sure I can lean on the DM in terms of what sorts of things I can make Stone Shape do. Its not that the spell is really loose in definition, but if you start thinking about what happens when an expert in stone masonry suddenly reshapes even a smallish part of a bridge, tower, wall, etc, well the effects can be quite outsized! Given that neither myself, the DM, or any of the other players happen to be a civil engineer, mason, etc (and we certainly aren't dwarves!) exactly what can and can't be accomplished is undoubtedly a matter of what I can convince the DM makes sense! I'm sure there are limits to that, but I'm equally sure that it will get interesting...</blockquote>

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