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<blockquote data-quote="Shardstone" data-source="post: 9226297" data-attributes="member: 6807784">I feel like the OP highlighted an interesting problem, but not the one they intended to highlight.If Healing Word and Inspiring Word or whatever have the same exact mechanics, making them two separate powers is increasing the cognitive load the system requires, but it's doing so in a way that isn't helpful at all. If I'm doing the same thing as that person is but with a different line of text, then why does it need to be repeated for every class? What's the actual difference between us if we're achieving the same thing mechanically AND a similar thing in terms of narrative? After all, if &quot;speaking words = heal someone&quot; then Healing Word and Inspiring Word are really just the same thing pretending not to be.This pretending is rife in 4E, and it turned a lot of people off. 5E does it a bit too, but they decided ultimately to call a spade a spade and to reuse their huge library of spell mechanics for various other mechanics. And that makes sense and does a better job at making the universe feel &quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;sensible.&quot;&quot;&quot;&quot; So when it comes to cognitive gap, this is where it's actually at for 4E. Trying to remember all these different powers that are quite literally the same thing and then translating that into story and fun roleplaying is difficult. Tom is casting firebolt, Brad is throwing firesphere, Amy is praying for an emberarrow, and Mike is slinging a flamebullet. Pretending to be different but actually being the same just feels so much more hollow and inauthentic than just all doing the same thing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shardstone, post: 9226297, member: 6807784"] I feel like the OP highlighted an interesting problem, but not the one they intended to highlight. If Healing Word and Inspiring Word or whatever have the same exact mechanics, making them two separate powers is increasing the cognitive load the system requires, but it's doing so in a way that isn't helpful at all. If I'm doing the same thing as that person is but with a different line of text, then why does it need to be repeated for every class? What's the actual difference between us if we're achieving the same thing mechanically AND a similar thing in terms of narrative? After all, if "speaking words = heal someone" then Healing Word and Inspiring Word are really just the same thing pretending not to be. This pretending is rife in 4E, and it turned a lot of people off. 5E does it a bit too, but they decided ultimately to call a spade a spade and to reuse their huge library of spell mechanics for various other mechanics. And that makes sense and does a better job at making the universe feel """"sensible."""" So when it comes to cognitive gap, this is where it's actually at for 4E. Trying to remember all these different powers that are quite literally the same thing and then translating that into story and fun roleplaying is difficult. Tom is casting firebolt, Brad is throwing firesphere, Amy is praying for an emberarrow, and Mike is slinging a flamebullet. Pretending to be different but actually being the same just feels so much more hollow and inauthentic than just all doing the same thing. [/QUOTE]

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