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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6009616" data-attributes="member: 87792">Two of the best bits of DMing advice I know are "Let it ride" and "Roll the dice or say yes".  I have absolutely no desire for a mini-FAQ on such a basic spell outside of tournament play.  I'd far rather the PCs tried stunts with it rather than looked up in the FAQ. Ah, I consider that Spell Resistance applying should be a default otherwise spell resistance is just a minor oddity - and stated this explicitely in my writeup.  Which regrettably it is in 3.X.  (4e doesn't have Spell Resistance at all.)  Absolutely.  Which is why it is in the line of narrative description I gave.  Those things matter - but only when we start going into details.  You don't need to say more about it exploding on impact other than that it explodes on impact.  That covers everything until the PCs start trying to get creative - at which point it gives the DM enough to cover everything.   I neither need nor want the game to hold me by the hand and explain to me in words of one syllable:This spell explodes on impact.  That means that if it hits something that gets in the way it blows up.  And that is the centre of the fireball.  Also it is possible to aim it through small spaces and if you can hit such a small gap you can make it blow up on the far side of the small gap.  You use the same rules you do to aim at a small gap to aim a fireball. I find it annoying, patronising, and that it simply gets in the way the overwhelming majority of the time - and the .  The one line text summary on the other hand normally says almost everything important and treats me like an adult whose time is actually worth something. I also find the only significant difference between the paragraph I wrote using as short words as I could think of added to my single sentence and the paragraph below to be that the paragraph below seems to positively enjoy unnecessary obfuscation like "pointing digit", and "prior to attaining the prescribed range".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. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#touchAttacks" target="_blank">touch attack</a>, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely. In particular the sentence "An early impact results in an early detonation." is overtly as patronising as anything in my paragraph - but it is necessary because of the sheer woolyness and lack of craftsmanship of the sentence " and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point."   That sentence could be simplified to "and it blossoms into the fireball either when it reaches the set range or when it hits something". I hadn't realised in quite as much detail before this thread why I found the 3.X spell mechanics annoying.  They simply were aggravating.  But now I come to analyse rather than avoid what is actually written, I'm seeing a mix of patronising and obfuscatory that adds precisely nothing to the game and slows me down by forcing me to work out what the spell actually is trying to do rather than presenting it in one single line. Oh, and saddles me with bad mechanics that force me to go to the spell description rather than work out a solution in line with the fiction for edge cases. Oh, and for more complex spells you have miss, hit, and effect lines in 4e - but the goal of the spell is in the name and line of flavour text.  We can add it to the flavour line if it's that important.  We can even add a line about material components.  (I categorically refuse to add the line about melting metals however).  Yes, yes they do.  And one of the weaknesses of 4e is that until you've understood what the terms mean it's harder to read and interpret.  Only very slightly if you're running on exception based design and have a competent DM.  But 3.X fireball for all practical purposes doesn't have a unique mechanic.  I would be amazed if as many as 5% of all fireballs cast ever used the "explodes early" or the "through arrowslit" clauses.  And I'd be surprised if it hit 1%.  Most of the time fireball is just a big ball of fire (and I've never seen a single person object that 4e changed what the caster did to create one to "create a big ball of fire in his hands then throw it").</blockquote>

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