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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7391487" data-attributes="member: 82106">How good an example is it? a 4e Fireball is an area burst 2, meaning it is a full 25' across. This is a SLIGHT exaggeration of the 'canonical' 20' diameter fireball. the upshot is, if you actually draw the 'canonical' fireball inside the 25' 5x5 square 4e footprint they are identical, assuming you used the rule 'any square partially in the AoE is affected'. Thus the 4e fireball compromises in no respect on the 'classic' fireball, aside from exactly regularizing the target points in 5' increments, which IMHO isn't a really big deal. However the procedure for resolution is about an order of magnitude simpler to handle. In fact however, the canonical fireball is supposed to fill a 'volume' of (IIRC 22,000 cubic feet, or 22 10x10x10 cubes, expanding in all directions). Exactly how this is resolved is left to the GM. So you can't, always at least, even say exactly WHAT is within the area of the canonical fireball of classic D&D. In practice few GM's take into account the height of ceilings and other such factors when resolving them. So really I'm not convinced that 4e's approach IS actually 'less realistic' in any meaningful sense.This is an aesthetic choice for you, which it seems to me is mostly made in the direction of "this is traditional" and not necessarily a really objective evaluation of any kind of realism. So I'm not exactly impressed with the degree to which this OBJECTIVELY amounts to simulationism. As I pointed out in my ammunition discussion in a previous post, I remain unconvinced that the most basically 'realistic' procedure is actually more accurate, even in a simulation sense. In a verisimilitude sense (which again I consider a somewhat separate and purely aesthetic concept) there's nothing that MUST make what you say true either.Eh, don't overstate things. It is EASIEST OF ALL to reason about purely gamist constructs, as these are highly structured and easily understood and implemented at the table without questions of interpretation. Having played 4e for 10 years I can say that this is HUGE. Nobody can argue in a 4e battle about exactly what the fireball did. Its clear. Its quite easy to reason about it!Good grief! Game Masters are now cops, and players are cheating if they don't manage to accurately record every arrow they use? Play as you wish, I have NO desire to get near that!Exactly! And there is no way anyone can say what is actually realistic. The type of arrows, the humidity, the amount of light, etc etc etc are all going to factor into if they break or split, how far away they are, how hard to see, etc. There are actually quite a few factors. To the point where, as I said before, you're totally 'winging it' to make a ruling. This is one of those places where the GM is tempted to either favor the PCs, or something else. Frankly I don't recommend this sort of thing, I'd rather use the Cortex+ Heroic method!Sure, but what of the fletching, the nock of the arrow, etc? Its going to depend on how it was made, the exact materials, workmanship, etc. Eventually (and in my limited experience as a very amateur archer not super long) any given arrow will degrade. Again, simulating this realistically is probably not feasible, the best you will get is some largely gamist "it works 3 times" or something like that. Congrats you now have to track EACH ARROW and how many times it has been used? Nobody is going to do that. You could reduce the fraction that are recovered to produce I'm certainly not faulting classic D&D for just inventing some usable GAMIST valuations and numbers. Gygax didn't go research this stuff because he didn't have to. His numbers are within common sense and thus don't invalidate player common sense, and they work for what he wants. Also they're in the PHB, so the players should KNOW them (in 1e anyway). All I'm proposing is that the consideration in 1e was gamist, not simulationist, and that in games like Cortex+ (or HoML) that the primarily story-centered approach taken is not really LESS realistic than Gygax's. It is less 'numerical model', that's all.I just don't see all that as having such a high value, when I seem to be able to be equally realistic using a simpler process. As I said before, this is a verisimilitude question, pure aesthetics, and not one of any agenda at all (in the GNS sense of the word agenda).</blockquote>

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