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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4160686" data-attributes="member: 47776">Hah.  Of course the Grey Wanderer could get across a chasm.  He just makes a fireworks-powered rocket, shoots himself across, and waits for Eru to reincarnate what's left of his body on the other side.Of course, given the D&D baggage placed on the term 'archmage', I wouldn't put any of the Istari at that rank.  None of them demonstrated particularly great levels of skill or leveled ability.  Middle-Earth was just an E6 (or possibly E8) world.Now, that being said, I like high power curves.  I like the fact that D&D isn't Iron Heroes.  I like the fact that you need to read the rules, and think about them, and that if you go into a situation with the wrong mental metaphors, you are SoL, and that the players can gain a great advantage by subverting the paradigm of a given challenge.  To me, the ability of flying creatures and long-range attack spells to kick battles into the modern paradigm of close air support and artillery, and especially to do so when you have a castle, 50 mages, one wyrmling dragon, and 10,000 orcs beating down your doors, is unquestionably a design feature, not a bug.  I like scry-and-die as the logical evolution of power-to-a-point tactics; it, in conjunction with abjurations like Forbiddance, give perfect reasons for high-level characters to limit their activities outside of warded areas; this could be the day those enemies you didn't know you had teleport in and gank you horribly.  I really like that instead of building a fortress with a built-in weakness that the party must find, I can build a fortress, design it as best I can, and watch the party probe its defenses, found a weakness I actually overlooked, and organically and honestly go forth and kick ass.Now, that being said, I'm also looking greatly forward to 4E.  4E, with its paradigm of mostly-at-will abilities, looks like the first test for world-building will be to scour the low-level at-will or per-encounter abilities, and see which have exploitable effects.  What happens when a dragonborn alchemist starts harvesting his exhaled acid, or makes use of his electrical breath weapon to facilitate chemical reactions (such as electroplating)?  What are the ramifications of Eladrin teleportation?Power and ability systems with a lot of interacting fiddly bits interest me.  "The world just works this way, regardless of the implications of the rest of the world that say it shouldn't." does the polar opposite of interesting me.</blockquote>

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