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ROBRAM89 wrote:

You people really know how to dodge questions.

The entire point of the argument here was that now that nearly all spells are mostly damage spells, the spells that were formerly used to ENHANCE* (note this word) roleplaying are either gone or different from what they were.

Nobody has addressed this directly yet. You're all picking apart tangentially related arguments that are vastly not the key point.

*Yes, we all know roleplaying is seperate from rules. We aren't idiots. But certain aspects of a system CAN make roleplaying easier or more central and others can do the opposite. There has never been an RPG made that completely made it impossible to actually play a role. But you're just plain lying if you say that all games are equally conducive to it.

Non-damaging spells to enhance roleplaying were noted earlier.

DaidojiTaidoru wrote:

In as ritual:
Magic Mouth
Silent Image
Minor Image
Major Image
Hallucinatory Terrain:
Illusory Wall:
Mirage Arcana:
Persistent Image:
Permanent Image:
Programmed Image
Shadow Walk
Project Image

Rituals are were you get your non-combat related roleplaying spell goodness. Spells used in combat need to actually do something that has some effect in combat (and illusions were largely useless against any number of foes. Most intelligent creatures are probably going to disbelieve a good number of illusions that you suddenly cast in the middle of combat. Short of the silly Shadow X spells (which happened to do damage and were largely useless outside of combat) most illusions that were useful in combat in 3.X did similar things to the illusions available in 4E except they didn't also do damage, and I'm not sure how adding damage to something somehow ruins it, especially when you can decide that the damage isn't lethal if your want.)

ROBRAM89 wrote:

But there just plain aren't a hell of a lot of rituals. I'm not talking illusions specifically, I mean in general.

There weren't a hell of a lot of roleplay enhancing spells in 3.5 that didn't just cause a whole lot of extra problems. Name me some that you miss and they were probably OH EXPLOITABLE or just caused a lot of work for DMs.

I personally like to err on the side of fewer magic solutions to problems. I like it when bare tools are there, but if you have a single spell that bypasses what would have otherwise been a nail-biting challenge, I'd say it was a bad spell. Of course, that's just me.

ROBRAM89 wrote:

One? At no point, no point, did I say I was 3.5 was that vastly better. You all assumed that. I do think that, but I never said that. I made a slight comparison as to some things that existed and now don't, but that's it.

In 3.5, a spellcaster had an enormous pool of spells to choose from freely. Now they don't. I don't know how to make it much simpler than that. And I haven't exactly done the math, but I guarantee you the ratio of combat to noncombat spells has drastically shifted with 4E.

And when something is exploitable, you don't get rid of it, you fix it.

It was statistics. You're talking about how they have less utility spells. If you didn't play an older edition, you would have no frame of reference and judging by the way you type, you don't seem like a grognard, so I assumed 3.5. Of course, I didn't call you a fanboy or anything, so I'm not sure why you're so offended. Even if you preferred 4e, I'd want to chime in if I thought you were championing the 3.5 spell system.

In any case, you didn't name any spells, so I'll name some for you. Ethereal jaunt. Seemingly non-combat (although it can get you out of just about any TPK), it broke my Eberron campaign. Players were looking for some guy on a ship and some dude used that spell to stick his nose (quite literally) into every inch of that ship in under 5 minutes.

mccowen wrote:

That's why 4e has fewer non-combat mechanics than 3.x did.

…Another lie.

Will we never be set free?