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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9612194" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Precisely, though you are arguing something parallel to but not on the same track as [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] I believe.That is, I believe his argument is that, because the spell is offered at that level, it can't be defined as obviously inappropriate for players to have at said level, otherwise the designers wouldn't have offered it then. Your point, one step to the side, seems to be that it was unwise of the designers to offer that spell at that level, because they had designed a game where the fun of it was specifically intended to be overcoming certain kinds of obstacles, and yet then they saw fit to include resources and features that make those very challenges irrelevant.I am reminded of an argument I've seen from a handful of people, more or less that this is the intent: that you should transcend some challenges over time, but in so doing encounter a different, new, non-commensurate challenge or challenges to replace them, and that this very thing is what gaining levels does or should represent. The problem I find is that that is a great idea that D&D has never, ever done, and 3e was absolutely, positively terrible at achieving even the tiniest portion of it, and especially terrible at doing anything whatever to support DMs trying to run the game that way. The only time D&D ever got close was the transition between "early" game dungeon-crawling and the later "domain (management)" play, where fighters would transition from personally invading every orc's pantry to murder them and steal all their stuff, to sending out paid retainers to do that, where clerics would go from bringing light to dark places and into guiding the flock and finding others willing to take up the mantle, where wizards would retreat to their wizard towers and begin searching for ioun stones, etc.At least in that transition, there was a clear change of state, and the players' goals and motivations would shift in response to their shift in power, responsibility, and resources. But you never totally left the dungeon-crawling behind, AIUI. You just left the "this is beneath my station" ones, where you were killing three goblins in a hallway, to your lackeys. Big ones, against dragons with their hoards or demiliches or whatever? You bet your hindquarters, the Lady of the Manor and Friar Fryer and Ferdinand Fortescue, Esq., D.Mag, OBE, VCR, etc. etc., are going to be the ones to go there and claim the wealth and power and prestige (or, like as not, die trying). So even when there was an intended and coded-in change of state, it didn't actually eliminate the old challenges of murder-holes and their murderous hole-dwelling denizens. It just made the party picky about their murder-holes.</blockquote>

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