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<blockquote data-quote="GoLu" data-source="post: 4298275" data-attributes="member: 58460">Now that's just looking for trouble.Anyway, yes, spells are significantly less open ended now, and there is more &quot;it just happens&quot; and less interaction with vocabulary and physics knowledge and random trivia.&nbsp; Except only the spellcasters got to do that.&nbsp; It's not like fighters had abilities like &quot;name one body part, which your next attack will sever should it hit (with no rules for effects)&quot; or &quot;you smash one object, flattening it completely (with no mention of whether you can do this to someone's helm while they are wearing it)&quot;.Basically, I could see the game going in one of two directions.&nbsp; Either everyone ends up with powers that provoke lawyerly arguments with the DM (the power of which is greatly determined by the DM and your ability to convince the DM that what you want is reasonable) or else everyone ends up with clearly defined powers and there is some sort of catch-all system to handle weird stunts.&nbsp; As it turns out, they went with the second approach.On the other hand, the catch-all system seems pretty robust in 4th edition, even having a chart of appropriate (high!) damage values so you don't end up making three difficult skill checks only to do 1d6 damage to someone.&nbsp; So maybe imagination isn't really gone; just handled differently.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="GoLu, post: 4298275, member: 58460"] Now that's just looking for trouble. Anyway, yes, spells are significantly less open ended now, and there is more "it just happens" and less interaction with vocabulary and physics knowledge and random trivia. Except only the spellcasters got to do that. It's not like fighters had abilities like "name one body part, which your next attack will sever should it hit (with no rules for effects)" or "you smash one object, flattening it completely (with no mention of whether you can do this to someone's helm while they are wearing it)". Basically, I could see the game going in one of two directions. Either everyone ends up with powers that provoke lawyerly arguments with the DM (the power of which is greatly determined by the DM and your ability to convince the DM that what you want is reasonable) or else everyone ends up with clearly defined powers and there is some sort of catch-all system to handle weird stunts. As it turns out, they went with the second approach. On the other hand, the catch-all system seems pretty robust in 4th edition, even having a chart of appropriate (high!) damage values so you don't end up making three difficult skill checks only to do 1d6 damage to someone. So maybe imagination isn't really gone; just handled differently. [/QUOTE]

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