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<blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 1606239" data-attributes="member: 1049">Snoweel, I beg to differ.&nbsp; In the real world, there are plenty of people who work to make a difference.&nbsp; Many of them with some sort of wealth.&nbsp; (Think how many celebrities make a goal of do-gooding.)&nbsp; Granted, there are many complex forces that keep us from remaking ourselves into a utopia, and one of them is the fact that these forces are complex and thus not easily bypassed by a simple solution, but I don't think that an evil conspiracy of moustache-twirlers is that much of an issue.&nbsp; The rich get richer while the poor get poorer because the rich have more ability to redirect wealth and hoarde, not because the rich make an active effort of keeping their &quot;lessers&quot; down.Now, what bothers me about magic is the fact that what spells do is often so predictable.&nbsp; Most PHB spells can have their effects predicted down to the second, especially when you ignore spells that deal hit points or require a save.&nbsp; And a convenient, predictable magic doesn't feel properly magical at all, really.It's not that an unpredictable magic system would turn off players; games with skill-based magic exist, magic-users who have to roll to pull of their spells are played alongside fighters who have to roll to hit with their sword.&nbsp; The idea that your spell won't necessarily work as well as you like, as well as the possibility of backfire, are part of what give magic its charm, though; The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a lot more fantastic than most anything The Lab Assistant gets into, and The Sorcerer has to be far warier with what he relies on than The Researcher.I understand that magic has to be balanced to work within the rules.&nbsp; But a little more variance (especially since most combat-based spells are already the most variable, and also given how most catastrophic failures have been nerfed) would be nice, while avoiding the very technological micromanaging-to-the-minute many current spells use.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Humanophile, post: 1606239, member: 1049"] Snoweel, I beg to differ. In the real world, there are plenty of people who work to make a difference. Many of them with some sort of wealth. (Think how many celebrities make a goal of do-gooding.) Granted, there are many complex forces that keep us from remaking ourselves into a utopia, and one of them is the fact that these forces are [i]complex[/i] and thus not easily bypassed by a simple solution, but I don't think that an evil conspiracy of moustache-twirlers is that much of an issue. The rich get richer while the poor get poorer because the rich have more ability to redirect wealth and hoarde, not because the rich make an active effort of keeping their "lessers" down. Now, what bothers me about magic is the fact that what spells do is often so predictable. Most PHB spells can have their effects predicted down to the second, especially when you ignore spells that deal hit points or require a save. And a convenient, predictable magic doesn't feel properly magical at all, really. It's not that an unpredictable magic system would turn off players; games with skill-based magic exist, magic-users who have to roll to pull of their spells are played alongside fighters who have to roll to hit with their sword. The idea that your spell won't necessarily work as well as you like, as well as the possibility of backfire, are part of what give magic its charm, though; The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a lot more fantastic than most anything The Lab Assistant gets into, and The Sorcerer has to be far warier with what he relies on than The Researcher. I understand that magic has to be balanced to work within the rules. But a little more variance (especially since most combat-based spells are already the most variable, and also given how most catastrophic failures have been nerfed) would be nice, while avoiding the very technological micromanaging-to-the-minute many current spells use. [/QUOTE]

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