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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tuxgeo" data-source="post: 4493468" data-attributes="member: 61026">(Not to derail the thread -- we were asked to list a Love and a Hate; maybe I should fork this? -- but I thought a reply might be in order.) Re: "Player powers are not the full extent of the system." True. But the subject I was listing was a pair of player powers: 3e "Hallow" and 4e "Hallowed Ground" are both player powers, (mostly) defensive in nature, using a daily power (or daily spell slot in 3e), affecting an area about the size of a house or churchyard (55 feet across in 4e), giving +2 to AC (or ALL defenses in 4e) and a +2 bonus to saves, about mid-career power level (5 of 9 in 3e, 16 of 30 in 4e). They seem directly comparable to me. Re: "Sacred Circle": While a lovely terrain effect (and thank you for your effort and diligence in including a page reference), that is not notably comparable: NOT a player power; NOT using a daily slot; NOT defensive; NOT affecting a whole building (only 15 feet across); NOT giving bonuses to saves. But you know what? That's not the real clincher: The actual issue is the NAME. The word "hallow" or "hallowed" does not occur anywhere in the DMG description of Sacred Circle: it is described as an area "dedicated" to a deity. Yes, the name is the make-or-break issue for me: if 4e "Hallowed Ground" had been named "Defensive Advantage Zone" (DAZ for short), I would not have considered it a nerf of 3e "Hallow" for a moment -- I would have thought of it as a brand-new power, useful in some of the same ways as 3e "Hallow." I included "Hallowed Ground" as an example of nerfs because its degree is so gargantuan: the 4e prayer has in the loose neighborhood of a MILLIONTH of the duration of the 3e spell. (Churches can be centuries old: Mont. St. Michel is roughly 1300 years old -- about 136,000,000 encounters -- and presumably hallowed all that time. It seems to me that the 3e "Hallow" spell was an attempt to simulate that kind of duration, but 4e figuratively tosses it out the window.) The presence of the word "hallow" makes the 3e and 4e powers comparable, but it is the egregious degree of the change which makes that nerf exemplary, and that is why I listed it. (How much is Magic Missle nerfed? Range: 100 feet instead of 100 feet + 10 feet/level? No automatic hit? That is a distinctly lesser nerf than being a millionth of the duration.) And if it doesn't already exist in the game as a magic item, no PC can research it and invent it, because there are no guidelines for doing so. Yes. That was my point. They do, barely: They're so situational that they are not available in every encounter, relying as many of them do on rolling natural 20s, or having somebody use an action point, etc. Just to propose an example: few of them would cause the local Baron to say, "We have a job that only a Cleric of Pelor can do. Go fetch one! No, a cleric of Avandra won't do!"</blockquote>

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