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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5345622" data-attributes="member: 61155">And, I'm sorry, that still isn't want I'm saying! Ok, you feel it is a bad power that requires decent interpretation in order to work.  I believe the way it is written will work fine in the vast majority of games. I feel that any potential abuses of it will be stopped by the restrictions written into the power by a DM running it as written. I feel that any potential issues it might cause for a skill challenge are ones that already exist for numerous powers, items, rituals and creative skill uses already in the game.  You've said it is a bad rule because a DM might potentially let it bypass a skill challenge. Do you feel the same is true of other elements that a DM might let do the same? You apparently consider movement based challenges to be fair game. What about an example you already used? The group needs to convince a scholar to let them into the temple archives. Say someone walks around the back of building, and uses Breaching Armor to teleport inside.  Do you allow this? Does this possible use of the armor mean that it is a badly designed item?  Ok, I admit, I'm more familiar with the Charm spells of past editions than Friends spells. And those were the ones I saw real abuse with - usually for a few reasons:-It was much easier to make the spell very, very difficult for most people to resist. -These spells could easily last for significant lengths of time. -You could pretty easily convince people to do things they wouldn't do, shy of obviously suicidal actions.  And in fact... looking at the versions presented earlier in this thread, the Charm spells continue to be the ones that look potentially abusive. So just to be clear: Are you saying that the earlier versions of this exact spell (Friends) were problematic in the past?  Or that the earlier versions of the Charm spells had the same limits as this power? (Which doesn't seem to be the case.)   Yeah, but... I'm not arguing for a system that encourages creativity at the price of becoming an unbalanced system! That's the breakdown here. I'm not saying that the creativity of this power outweighs the flaws that require DM interpretation. I'm saying that those flaws don't exist. I don't believe they will actually come up in games with any more regularity than issues caused by teleportation, or flight, or bluff checks, or the very premise of skill challenges themselves. I believe this because I feel that the main abuses that charm spells usually allow for have all been addressed within the power itself.  You feel differently. That's fine. But you seem to keep arguing against non-existing arguments that I haven't presented, or distorted versions of my position. I don't think you are intentionally creating a straw man argument, but... it's still frustrating to see you argue against positions I'm not trying to defend.   Again, just to make this clear: I'm not arguing for creativity at the cost of balance. I'm not arguing for irresponsibility in rule design, or game balance being a burden placed upon the DM. I believe this power is balanced in and of itself.  The entire discussion on creativity was born out of a seperate question that someone else presented - did we feel anything would be lost by changing the power. And my answer was yes, I feel a more rigid power could discourage players from going beyond the pure mechancis presented to them. That wasn't a justification for this power being unbalanced, it was an argument that, all other elements being equal, there would be a downside (in my mind) to replacing this with "You automatically succeed on a Diplomacy check."</blockquote>

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