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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5540802" data-attributes="member: 42582">Much as was the case with original D&D, or B/X.Basic/Expert didn't address them. It left it as an exercise for the players/GMs. Generally, B/X is lauded as a terrific, open-ended, imagination-inspiring game.4e doesn't address them expressly, either. But it does have a bit more detail. It has the text I quoted upthread from PHB p 10 (and other similar text scattered throughout the PHB) which says that PCs can do whatever a powerful fantasy action hero can do. And it has DMG p 42, plus the two-or-so page discussion around pp 64ff of how to damage objects.Now if someone (not necessarily you, but I've certainly seen it suggested) is trying to tell me that 4e is therefore a radical departure from B/X, and that it kills imaginative play whereas B/X fosters it, they're going to have to point to something more than the "target: creature" line in the power descriptions.These would be the same people who, when playing B/X, assumed that a fireball could not do anything other than damage creatures? Were there really very many such people? (And would they continue to think this even after reading the suggesion in the DMG about paper being vulnerable to fire damage?)Fair enough. I've got no idea what the norm is. My impression on these boards is that much of the criticism of 4e being creativity-stifling, "dissociated", etc comes from those who don't play it (LostSoul being the most obvious exception to this) but that impression could of course be biased by my own interests!This issue - the benefit that spellcasters have in open-ended action resolution - came up a while ago on one of my actual play threads (I think <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/301282-actual-play-examples-balance-between-fiAction-mechanics.html" target="_blank">this one</a>).Part of my response then was that 4e martial PCs get various metagame-style powers to compensate. Obviously the GM also has to be mindful. In the case of hypnotism, presumably it could be used to make a guard wander away from his/her post (3 square slide), to stab someone (melee basic attack), perhaps to pocket something (maybe not much more sophisticated than a melee basic attack). It couldn't be used to make someone say anything very complex (more sophisticated than a melee basic attack).Useful? Yes. Signicantly more powerful than (for example) the Suggestion cantrip? I don't think so. Unbalanced? I'm not sure. I'd have to see it in play. But my initial intuition is No, because it is clearly not versatile or powerful enough to substitute for training in Diplomacy.</blockquote>

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