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<blockquote data-quote="Shardstone" data-source="post: 9074172" data-attributes="member: 6807784">Spells as natural hazards is such a nifty tool that people seem to really hate, and I think its all because of aesthetics.The 600+ spells in the game are really 600+ different mechanical effects in the game. If you go through all of thoe mechanical effects, you can find very good expressions for a huge range of ideas, from traps to weather to hazards and more. I wish D&amp;D was more forward about this. When you see spells for the tools they are, you realize that D&amp;D has a lot of ways to do very interesting and fun encounters, like saying this fey mist the Archfey fights with creates natural Hypnotic Patterns, or a character sees a loved one die and the adrenaline and pain gives them the effects of the Haste spell without concentration, or a poison that when afflicted with strikes the target with Eyeblight.Perhaps the big issue here is less about martial vs caster and more about the inability to access 600+ different mechanics depending on your game class. And perhaps the need to call these spells at all, and not something like &quot;Mysteries&quot; or &quot;Fantastic Phenomena&quot; gets in the way of that more then anything else.Why shouldn't my Fighter be able to strike the Archmage in the eyes, afflicting them with Eyebite? Why can't my Barbarian trigger the effect of Fear on all enemies when they hit a brutal critical?In the end, what is a spell anyway? There's no real definition to it in D&amp;D outside of shaping the weave through Force of Will and ritual, and that itself is tenative. If a spell is an expression of Fantasy, then really, those mechanics should be opened up in a way that lets every class draw from them. Fighters who can spend hit die to gain the effects of Haste for a round, or Monks hitting a target with all of their flurry of blows, inflicting Slow upon the target. Etc etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shardstone, post: 9074172, member: 6807784"] Spells as natural hazards is such a nifty tool that people seem to really hate, and I think its all because of aesthetics. The 600+ spells in the game are really 600+ different mechanical effects in the game. If you go through all of thoe mechanical effects, you can find very good expressions for a huge range of ideas, from traps to weather to hazards and more. I wish D&D was more forward about this. When you see spells for the tools they are, you realize that D&D has a lot of ways to do very interesting and fun encounters, like saying this fey mist the Archfey fights with creates natural Hypnotic Patterns, or a character sees a loved one die and the adrenaline and pain gives them the effects of the Haste spell without concentration, or a poison that when afflicted with strikes the target with Eyeblight. Perhaps the big issue here is less about martial vs caster and more about the inability to access 600+ different mechanics depending on your game class. And perhaps the need to call these spells at all, and not something like "Mysteries" or "Fantastic Phenomena" gets in the way of that more then anything else. Why shouldn't my Fighter be able to strike the Archmage in the eyes, afflicting them with Eyebite? Why can't my Barbarian trigger the effect of Fear on all enemies when they hit a brutal critical? In the end, what is a spell anyway? There's no real definition to it in D&D outside of shaping the weave through Force of Will and ritual, and that itself is tenative. If a spell is an expression of Fantasy, then really, those mechanics should be opened up in a way that lets every class draw from them. Fighters who can spend hit die to gain the effects of Haste for a round, or Monks hitting a target with all of their flurry of blows, inflicting Slow upon the target. Etc etc. [/QUOTE]

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