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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8756958" data-attributes="member: 4937">I totally understand that this is a hot button issue that was one of the big often thoughtless attacks that became a trope in some arguments.  But at the same time, I don't use that term lightly or necessarily even derogatorily.  There is a meaningful disagreement over this area that has really meaningful impact over the style of game you play.   There isn't a right way to do this, there are just tradeoffs between things you lose and things you gain when you decide to do mundane things with the same sort of logic that underlies say a BECMI or OSR spell description.So in short, I am fully aware of both sides of this debate and all the nuances of the people making the position.   And as full disclosure, let me go a little tangential and compare the SRD version of 'Spike Stones' to what I wrote up in my house rules for 3.Xe to show you where my aesthetics on this actually are:This is the SRD: <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spikeStones.htm" target="_blank">Spike Stones :: d20srd.org</a>And here is my take on the same spell:[spoiler]"Rocky ground, stone floors, and similar surfaces shape themselves into a bramble of random razor sharp stone points that impede progress through the area and deal damage. Each square so effected counts as difficult uneven terrain and any creature of tiny size or larger that enters an area of stone spikes or spends a round fighting while standing in such an area may step on one or more spikes. In such situations, the spikes make an attack roll (base attack bonus +6) against the creature. For this attack, the creature’s shield, armor, and deflection bonuses do not count. If the creature is wearing hard soled shoes or similar footwear, it gets a +2 armor bonus to AC. If the spikes succeed on the attack, the creature has stepped on one or more spikes and suffers 1d6 damage. Stone spikes count as +1 magical weapons for the purposes of overcoming DR.Any creature that takes damage from this spell must also succeed on a Fortitude save to avoid injuries to its feet and legs. A failed save causes the creature’s speed to be reduced to half normal for 24 hours or until the injured creature receives a cure spell (which also restores lost hit points). Another character can remove the penalty by taking 10 minutes to dress the injuries and succeeding on a Heal check against the spell’s save DC.Creatures within the area of effect of the spell at the time of casting automatically receive attacks and lose their dexterity bonus against such attacks if they were flat-footed. Creatures that fall prone in the area effect receive a normal attack (that does not bypass armor) with a +2 circumstance modifier on the check, and if this attack succeeds they take double damage. If the creature falls onto this surface from height, use the normal rules for falling onto long spikes.The spike growths are colored so that they blend into the background effectively, and they are not easily seen and practically invisible until a character is almost on top of them. Characters within 5’ of a field of spike growths are entitled to a DC 20 spot check to observe the danger. Otherwise, they do not observe their presence until they first impale themselves. Charging or running creatures automatically fail this check, being in any event unable to stop their headlong rush in time. On the other hand, a character moving very slowly and carefully and probing the floor ahead (as with a pole or staff) requires only a DC 10 search check to notice the unusually hard projections."[/spoiler]Now you should see the trade-offs I'm making.  My description is much wordier and has a lot more qualifiers.   The part that is obviously offensive to me about the SRD version is this: "In addition, each creature moving through the area takes 1d8 points of piercing damage for each 5 feet of movement through the spiked area." My rewrite is essentially saying, "That's far too reliable of narrative force than even a spell which can theoretically do anything should have."  One reason for that is if a spell-caster has that much reliable narrative force that isn't qualified by anything, then there is no way a martial character can keep up.So yes, you can create post-hoc justifications for almost any mechanic and that will keep the mechanic simple and easy to run and adjudicate.  But you do lose something when you apply that sort of design to a game, and obviously I think the tradeoff isn't worth it.  Other people might disagree and accept that tradeoff.To me it's a spell when you have to jump through enough narration hoops to explain why it is happening that it strains credulity.  If you hit a basically mindless, fearless Iron Golem with an attack that automatically knocks it 5' back, to me you are going to struggle to explain this without appealing to the physics of the attack.  In the same way that not everyone running through a field of stone spikes ought to take the same unqualified damage, any foe struck by a hammer should not have the same need to vacate the space willingly or unwillingly.  And if a PC can reliably knock back an Iron Golem 5', then surely the PC can knock a goblin back 20' with the same hit?  If we are needing repeatedly to ignore the substance of the fiction, the way a Diablo like video game decides to ignore ammunition for class balance reasons and let ammunition users spam unlimited attacks just like everyone else, then everyone involved needs to be frank and up front about the aesthetics they are going for and not shy away from "but that's maneuver is basically just a spell".  Because that's a real aesthetic with real meaningful differences in a system whether we are going to look the other way or deal with them.For me I don't want a system that decides to fix the martial classes by saying, "Well, we can just give them spells."  It's logical, but it feels like the sort of answer you get from a hostile AI that you ask to help you end human suffering and the AI decides the best way to do it is get rid of humanity.  Yes, it is a solution, but it isn't one that I find acceptable.So given that I find that even a spell shouldn't have unlimited reliable narrative force, can you understand why when someone writes a maneuver that reads something like, "Once per day, you can on a successful attack knock back the foe 20", that it is functional to say, "That's a spell".  Whether it is a problem that that is a spell is a different matter, but there really is an aesthetic here that needs to be agreed on.  What has priority when determining resolution, the games fiction or the games mechanics?  There are definitely ways though to write mundane manuevers in ways that prioritize the game fiction by matching mechanics to the situation, they are however unavoidably fiddlier than systems that make the fiction adapt to the mechanics no matter what the mechanics are.  For example, if the foe got some sort of save against being knocked back of some sort that depended on size and strength, then I'm now happy.  That's not a spell.  We can appeal to mundane fiction to explain it without straining credulity.</blockquote>

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