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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5341494" data-attributes="member: 2067">See, my reaction to that is more: "If I wanted to take the Go Screw Yourself power, I would not have taken Instant Friends."Not all games are your games. 4e already includes NPC and monster advice that says, basically, "Anticipate how your players will use this character, and design this character to be used in that way." It's part of the reason 4e dropped things like NPC classes and PC/NPC equivalence, and why a PC minotaur and an NPC minotaur do different things. 4e also got rid of or marginalized sequence-breaking effects like PC flight. Specifically so that DM's wouldn't have their plans thwarted by simple powers. 4e is very comfortable with a fairly narrative approach to rules design. There's nothing about the game that indicates that DMs have to play the game like a sandbox. I don't see the DM judgment call as "the major factor."Indeed, as a DM, I see the DM judgment call as "Ah, I see the designers failed to actually give me rules I could use."It's possible for reasonable people to disagree on this, which is why I made sure to point out that it is my opinion. If you disagree with my opinion, start a thread about it. I am not engaged or excited when I have to puzzle out how to ride that razor line between making my power boringly powerful, or boringly weak. I buy books made by professional designers so that I don't have to make that judgement call. Since I don't spend 40 hours a week on D&D, I figure they have a better idea than I do about what might ride that line in most situations. Generally, you can't. The mechanical bonuses have a marginal benefit over simple vague wording simply because if I say "I have a Diplomacy roll of 25," it is more likely to be interpreted the same way by different DM's in different situations than if I say "I make it my friend." Mechanical skill bonuses also give things you can roll against, or elements to put on a continuum, so you can compare it against known quantities.But ultimately, they still suffer from the same problem: how effective it is depends mostly on how the current DM is feeling that day. Which is why we don't describe the Shield spell as "giving you protection as if you were approximately 2/5ths covered by a solid object such as a plane of metal." We just give you a bonus. I don't know of any wizards -- ever -- who did not take Magic Missile. I also don't know of any -- ever -- who took Major Creation.That's anecdotal, of course, but it speaks to the fact that, as far as I'm aware, people want game effects that have codified rules results that aren't up to the DM's whim as to how effective it is. Because people, generally, don't like to play a game of "Mother May I?" or "Is My DM Still Angry That I Took The Last Slice Of Pizza?" or "Am I Going To Get Boned For No Reason?" or "Am I Lucky Enough To Have A Good DM?"Generally, as far as I can tell, people wanna roll some dice and go on adventures and maybe be a big fat hero when it's all said and done. And asking the DM for permission to be awesome basically pre-empts the awesome. Instead, I get to tell the DM that I am awesome. But this is really far abroad of Instant Friends itself, and more about design theory in general, so it should probably be spun off if we're going to keep grinding this axe.</blockquote>

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