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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6655300" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think 2nd ed AD&amp;D, at least in some iterations, emphasised this sort of thing more, yes. My AD&amp;D intuitions tend to default to 1st ed.I hadn't thought of assassinating the balrog!Yep, that would do it - 1d12+4(magic)+2(STR) can get you to 18, x5 will kill a balrog or a high level warrior.I had in mind more Boromir/Aragorn/Glorfindel-type approaches!Thanks for the reply.Putting to one side the question of what is cool vs what is silly at a given table, I can see two points of system difference at work here.One is the approach to spells and what they can do. I think 5e is not as loose in this respect: the spell descriptions carry a lot of weight in the fiction, I think (they're the sorts of things one finds in spellbooks, on scrolls, used by enemy liches, etc) as well as mechanical frameworks for hanging action resolution on.The other, which I hadn't mentioned upthread as a possibility, is the lack of magic item economy. 4e's fairly tight item economy, and its downplaying of magic items as discovery/reward in the mechanical (as opposed to fictional) sense, means that letting players (and PCs) play fast-and-loose with magic item acquisition is much lower stakes than it would be in more traditional D&amp;D.I was thinking about this discussion overnight, and it occurred to me that in AD&amp;D a perfectly rational response to a challenging situation is to research a spell. Eg want to learn the password? Research a mind-reading spell. This is not really an aspect of 4e at all, at least as I've played it and interpreted it, because spell research fits with that tighter, mechanics+fiction interpretation of spells that is more traditional for D&amp;D and that 4e tended to depart from.Is spell research a big factor in 5e?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6655300, member: 42582"] I think 2nd ed AD&D, at least in some iterations, emphasised this sort of thing more, yes. My AD&D intuitions tend to default to 1st ed. I hadn't thought of assassinating the balrog! Yep, that would do it - 1d12+4(magic)+2(STR) can get you to 18, x5 will kill a balrog or a high level warrior. I had in mind more Boromir/Aragorn/Glorfindel-type approaches! Thanks for the reply. Putting to one side the question of what is cool vs what is silly at a given table, I can see two points of system difference at work here. One is the approach to spells and what they can do. I think 5e is not as loose in this respect: the spell descriptions carry a lot of weight in the fiction, I think (they're the sorts of things one finds in spellbooks, on scrolls, used by enemy liches, etc) as well as mechanical frameworks for hanging action resolution on. The other, which I hadn't mentioned upthread as a possibility, is the lack of magic item economy. 4e's fairly tight item economy, and its downplaying of magic items as discovery/reward in the mechanical (as opposed to fictional) sense, means that letting players (and PCs) play fast-and-loose with magic item acquisition is much lower stakes than it would be in more traditional D&D. I was thinking about this discussion overnight, and it occurred to me that in AD&D a perfectly rational response to a challenging situation is to research a spell. Eg want to learn the password? Research a mind-reading spell. This is not really an aspect of 4e at all, at least as I've played it and interpreted it, because spell research fits with that tighter, mechanics+fiction interpretation of spells that is more traditional for D&D and that 4e tended to depart from. Is spell research a big factor in 5e? [/QUOTE]

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