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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tovec" data-source="post: 5757585" data-attributes="member: 95493">The difference is, in 4e they have to take that initiative and a bad DM won't.In 3e, everyone can just follow the rules, and a bad DM can be shown they are wrong.Before you bring up the counter-argument of good DMs - they aren't really the issue, they can spin gold from festering waste in any game/edition. In 3e the rules support the game. In 4e the rules ARE the game.This is a perfect example of my issue with 4e, where the game has its rules put into one nice little box and its flavour in another. Yes, it means that you can/get to come up with your own flavour when the provided text isn't working for you. On the other hand it means you get to/HAVE TO do so as well.3e imposed limitations, but they almost always had reasons. They were limitations that made the fireball more exciting or valuable in a fight. If the effect is disjoint from the flavour then the fireball may as well be iceball, or any kind of elemental-ball they fell like when casting. It means that the flavour has to be provided by the people, and, as someone else said upthread, that's what I'm paying the game developer to do for me.The effect of "I swing my sword and stick my enemy in a weakspot near his arm" can be done with both 3e and 4e, so it is moot. The fact that a simple swing in 3e isn't so simple, or has a bunch of secondary effects, in 4e changes that dynamic in a way I dislike immensely.[MENTION=98255]Nemesis Destiny[/MENTION]When did the rules compendium come out? Which of the 3 "core" books is it? PHB, DMG or MM?I think you are confusing DM fiat - in order to get something to happen which normally wouldn't - with DM's prerogative - in which they can change whatever the hell they want.By 4th edition there is no reference to anything but creatures. I wonder why....? Oh wait, maybe it was an evolution and was left out intentionally? ..Maybe.. Maybe they didn't think people would need it included. Maybe in 4e they just wanted the spell effecting creatures and not effecting anything else, in order to make it more like a videogame. And that later someone pointed out the fallacy of fireball not catching things on fire, so when they wrote a rules compendium they decided to throw people a bone and say that DMs can make it catch stuff on fire. A logical fix. A more logical one would be changing the spell's rules regarding it instead of making it optional in a non-core book but that (like the entire "maybe" discussion) is just conjecture.[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] Why should the game designers have to tell us how a spell/effect works? Prior to 4e, I would say it is because they worked on the rules and that they designed them to function a specific way. Post 4e, I'd say you are probably right as everything is balanced so it makes very little difference anyway.The point is, prior to 4e, if you didn't like a rule then it was simple to not use it or to modify it so it made more sense. In 4e, however, it has been said upthread that if the text doesn't make sense that it should be reskinned in favour of something that does work for you. Not that the rule should be fixed or corrected but that how it looks and how the flavour effects the spell/effect should be changed.We saw this argument over and over with the Aragorn dream sequence suggestion from before. The same analogy should work for the little pixies that catch enemies on fire but not paper.Personally, if something is designed a certain way and I like that design then I'll use it. If I don't like the design I won't. But using flavour of the moment to alter the design to fix an illogical effect is just a step in the wrong direction. It also has the added downside of making flavour text not matter along with part of the rules text.(I'm not going to lie, the last bit of this post got away from me, but it is well past my bed time. Also, I caught up, finally!!)</blockquote>

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