Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6009408" data-attributes="member: 87792">I think so too. And what people prefer.  Yup.  But I explained why most of those aren't necessary - chiefly that other than the components, those are all default settings. Unless they say otherwise most spells are instantaneous, or near as (less than a second to me fits better than instantaneous). Spell Resistance if it means anything should apply except to rare exceptions (not as in 3.X where an entire school (conjuration) just about ignores SR) and all spells that don't say otherwise are V,S,M.  Further I believe stating the spell resistance status for all spells is actively harmful to good design as it means that too many designers will say SR: No on too many spells. Ignoring Spell Resistance should be an exceptional matter not routine.  I disagree. They are a mix of bad mechanics and details we already have. Almost all of them make the game experience actively worse for me and in some cases not just because they are making me waste my time on pointless text.  You can have that one if you like. I already know it's an explosion of flame. It's called Fireball. It does fire damage. It has already been called out as having exploded. It doesn't do pressure damage - that would be force. And it's not loud enough for thunder. That said, the roar is different from the alternatives of a "Fwoosh" of a fire flash flaring, a small explosionary boom, or near silence. The low roar I'll grant does add something.  Covered by "Explodes on impact" in the single line of flavour text. We know it explodes on impact. Which means it explodes on early impact. Entirely redundant.  How do I dislike this part? Let me count the ways. 1: Ranged Touch Attack. Fundamentally this is a bad mechanic to use here. The difference between a touch attack and a normal attack for aiming through an arrow slit should be non-existent. The slit isn't moving after all. 2: Ranged touch attack. The mechanics of this little rule make it easier for a wizard to hit through an arrowslit with a fireball than for an expert archer with an arrow. Thanks, but no thanks. The wizard should not be significantly more accurate with a fireball spell than an archer is with an arrow. 3: This is an edge case. As the DM I can cope with things like this - and if I can't I probably should swap seats. 4: Strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely. This is entirley redundant. This little paragraph makes the game experience worse in just about every possible way. Not only is it a complex paragraph for an edge case, the answers it gives are fundamentally bad. As a one off DM's call there is nothing wrong with them (you roll the dice then move on) but the precidents and consequences set are terrible.  It's fire, it's area effect, and doesn't have a selective target. Of course it does. Entirely redundant.  And this part is also bad mechanics. The spell is explictly instantaneous so it doesn't have time to spread through. It is called out as not having a pressure component so it can't force its way through. If it hits a simple wooden door (hardness 5, hp 10), it's probably going to turn it into charcoal and make it fall apart in a stiff wind. But it doesn't have pressure behind it so it should not continue. And without pressure the only way it's going to shatter anything is with a heating/freezing combo. In short there's no fictional reason for it to behave this way, the scenario's an edge case that a DM can handle (and it's obvious that this came from a "rule of cool" precedent), and so it actively makes the game worse.  Agreed. Yet more bad mechanics that make a nonsense of the fluff. The game is better without this rule.  Agreed. So we have one part of additional fluff (the roar), one part that mechanically makes the game worse (the ranged touch attack for getting through arrowslits), two parts that make the game's fluff worse as they contradict the rest of the description either explicitly and implicitely (the continue past barriers issue and the melt metals part). And the whole rest of that additional text you want is redundant. Give me the single line of fluff over the 3.X description even once you've trimmed it back the way you have any time. That said, I vastly prefer your trimmed description to the 3.X version; yours requires no wading through. But it lays bare the fundamental incoherence and bad design involved in what should be a simple spell. Huh. And I've just noticed one other bit of mechanical oddness in the 3.5 spell text - one that adds a use to the spell but makes it needlessly more complex.You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. Yours and mine both exploded on impact. A 3.5 wizard is meant to play "guess the range" and the exploding on impact is an alternative detonation method. With "explodes on impact" you guess the range to be 500 feet and then point at the ground by the feet of your target - much more accurate against anything not flying. And flyers can really move in 6 seconds. On reflection I prefer one intended detonation method rather than two - especially if we both missed that bit of text summarising the spell (which is another problem of far too wordy text blocks). So yeah, there are serious presentation issues involved here <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  (And for what it's worth I picked fireball because it's an iconic spell; I hadn't realised quite how bad the rules were for it in 3.5 before this thread).</blockquote>

Verification