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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7751490" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e is different in some ways from 3E and AD&D. Each of those is different from the other also. (Eg 4e uses 3E conventions for ability scores and for defences; it's skill system is no more different from AD&D's than 3E's is, and arguably is closer to AD&D in spirt as level matters; its approach to monster design is intermediate between the two systems; but it departs from AD&D and 3E's spell charts; etc, etc.)But that seems pretty separate from this "heavy hand of the designer" thing. 3E was designed too. So was AD&D, although much more haphazardly (each component was designed, but their interaction often was not).There was a small list of 3rd level MU/Elf spells and 2nd level Cleric spells to be used for NPCs above 3rd level.I think you've missed my point.The 4e rules don't say that a fireball doesn't et things alight. They say that a fireball is a fire effect, which is defined as "explosive burss, fiery rays, or simply ignition" (PHB p 55); while the DMG, in the rules for damaging objects (p 66), says "you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it." It was some posters on these boards who nevertheless asserted that, because the fireball targer line says "creatures in the burst", it doesn't burn things. And that is the sort of thing that gets held up as an example of 4e being "dissociated", and/or showing the "heavy hand" of the designer.My point is that (i) Moldvay Basic has identical wording - it describes a fireball as doing damage to creatures caught in the burst - but no one argues for that reason that Basic is "dissociated"; and (ii) there are posters on these boards who say that fire spells in 5e don't set things alight unless they mention it, but no one uses that as an arguemnt that 5e is "dissociated" or has the "heavy hand" of the designer - they just diagree with those posters; hence (iii) it makes no sense that 4e is evaluated differently from those other editions in these respects. (Which you yourself do in yoiur signoff. What is your basis for saying that 4e is different from Basi c or 5e in respect of the way it presents the fireball spell and establishes a framework for its adjudication?)The same question applies: why is a couple of hundred words in the AD&D PHB judged useful stuff for solving headaches, but a clear presentation of the spell in the 4e template judged the "heavy hand" of the game designer? The point of the 4e template is exactly the same: it provides guidelines for adjudication. But they're less presecriptive than Gygax's stuff (see eg the GM-ruling approach to object vulnerabiity I just quoted from the DMG) and more clear.This makes me wonder where you do your karaoke; and also where you played 4e, such that the Game Police came and beat up on you if you ran things differently from what the books suggested!I don't see that it is very exciting to be told how many dice a fireball wand does. And there are contradictions also: the spell has no significant pressure but "detonates with a low roar"; it "ignites all combustible materials" but "tems with a creature which makes its saving throw are considered as unaffected." Those aren't very exciting either. All that stuff seems to me like it should be either in generic rules for affecting objects, and/or generic rules for magic items.As far as the expanstion-to-volume issue is concerned, nothing stops a 4e GM adjudicating a fireball in 4e exactly the same as they did in AD&D (ie saying that it filll 343 5' cubes, a little bit more than the earlier version).Which goes also to the karaoke point: if that ruling is exciting, then why do you need the rulebooks imprimatur to implement it? After all, the first time that Gygax (or whomever) made that call, the rulebook didn't tell them too. To me it's a facepalm moment that people need the permission or even prescription from the rulebook to adjudicate effects in ways they think are appropriate.</blockquote>

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