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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 9444119" data-attributes="member: 55680">In my experience players can find ways of prying open even the most locked down spells. For example:1. The classic setting naughty word on fire with fire spells.2. Crap, the Duke is coming for dinner and we have no way to cool down the drinks and nobody has the right cantrip for that, quick cast Ice Knife at the bucket of water!3. I launch the object across the room with Catapult to get it to Touch the Big Button/yank the lever that triggers the device.4. During the baking contest I sneak some goodberries into the pie. One goodberry provides enough nutrition for 24 hours so the judge won't be hungry anymore when he's judging the other pies and that will give us an edge!As a DM you're always going to be judging the PCs do goofy things. In the campaigns I've played in cooking for/entertaining NPCs comes up a LOT so people trying to hack combat spells into non-combat uses is something that the DMs have to constantly adjudicate.For me that kind of adjudication is part of D&D and I don't want it to go away. But I like it when the adjudication has a lot of clear guidelines to help the DM while still leaving things open for player creativity. Illusions are just too wide-open for me and I'd like their effects nailed down more, the same with Suggestion. On the other end of the extreme there are a lot of 4e abilities where the flavor text is so incredibly vague that there's just nothing for the DM to work with if the players try to MacGyver it.Overall there's a spectrum between wide open (a lot of illusion spells which I agree are a pain to adjudicate) and completely locked down ("the spell does ice damage and nothing else, you can't use it to chill water or put out a fire, or distract people, or put on a show, or freeze muddy ground, all non-combat uses are VERBOTEN!").For me Command hits the exact sweet spot of that spectrum. It has an effect that's clearly explained in fiction, players can be creative with it, but there are clear boundaries and limits.Other people like other parts of the spectrum but few like either of the two extremes as if everything is completely wide open D&D isn't a game anymore, just improv storytelling and if everything is 100% utterly completely locked down then D&D has nothing separating it from a board game.</blockquote>

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