D&D 1st and 2nd Ed. sure was one crappy game, wasn't it?

[RandomCasualty]

1130630555[/unixtime]]
So your argument is, 2nd edition was so crappy that DMs did not worry about nerfing anything they deemed overpowered and thus spells were less broken?

Uuuh .... well, let's just say I disagree with that kind of logic.

Well, the thing is that it wasn't a nerf because most things were ambiguous. DMs just went with the most balanced interpretation. I mean lets face it, in 2E you could hardly figure out how the combat rules worked. Could you move and attack, how did 3/2 and 5/2 attack routines work, and all sorts of other crap. The saves were nonsensical "The flind gnoll hits you with his flind bar, roll a save vs wands or be disarmed!" I mean even white wolf's system was a lot more consistent than 2nd edition.

And that was direct normal stuff, when you got to obscure combos, I mean forget about it. Nobody had a damn clue what was "supposed" to happen there, so the DM just made up something balanced.

Really, I think the "you make it up" created a totally different feel from the game as opposed to 3E's "turn to page X and look up the rule for Y" . There was more of a sense of danger and discovery, because seriously, you had no idea what you were going to run into when you went into a dungeon. Generally when something bad happened in 1st or 2nd edition you'd exclaim "Oh fuck." Where as in 3rd edition, most people will end up whipping out the PHB, MM or whatever and turning to page 145, subsection B to try to prevent their untimely demise with rules lawyering.

People tend to think on a much higher metarules layer in 3E than they did in 2E, and to a degree I think it does distance people from their characters.

But that being said, there was so much just plain stupid crap in previous editions that 3E still wins out in spite of it.

[Crissa]

Spells were more balanced in 2nd... A first level spell which caused a save still had as much power at tenth level (given its narrow band of ability) as it was back at first. Of course, there's flashier, and quicker ways to do it... But spells didn't just die because their saves became uselessly low.

And PO could really make a really upset Chromatic Dragon sit next to you.

Res eventually really did kill you. Of course, no one still used material components and a few brave souls counted years on Haste, but... That's what elves were for.

-Crissa

[Murtak]

RC:
I have no clue how ambigious combat rules are supposed to make spells more balanced. I also do not know how you can think ambigious rules prevent rules-lawyering.

Crissa:
You think being able to turn a rabbit into a dragon is more balanced than the current version of polymorph?

[RandomCasualty]

1130664851[/unixtime]]
RC:
I have no clue how ambigious combat rules are supposed to make spells more balanced. I also do not know how you can think ambigious rules prevent rules-lawyering.

This one is rather easy to explain.

OK, when you have a broken spell, like 3E polymorph, you know what it does and it's broken, meaning you have a couple of options. Change it or live wtih it.

In 2nd edition, spells had big grey areas. Alot was simply up to the DM to decide. This prevented rules lawyering, because well, there just wasn't much to argue with. The rules were ambiguous, so the rules lawyer had no ammunition. Keep in mind that the less rules you have, the harder it is to rules lawyer.

Also, a lot of spells were just better balanced in 2E. Harm for instance had a full round casting time, which made it painfully easy to disrupt. It also required a hit roll against normal AC, not touch AC. Also, creatures rarely had over 100 hp, so a spell that took 1 round to cast, had to get a normal hit roll and reduced something to 1d4 hp without a save was actually pretty balanced.

Polymorph was way better balanced for a variety of reasons. Mostly because you didn't get huge natural armor bonuses that stacked wtih everytihng and monsters didn't have physical stats.

Fabricate, while largely unchanged in effect, couldn't break your game world because wealth didn't have much of an effect in 2E.

Spells like shrink item or Major creation (acid flasks) just weren't all that powerful in 2nd edition because you didn't have rules for how much damage a big boulder or 10 gallons of acid would actually do.

Buff/Bonus whores just didn't exist in 2nd, because it wasn't really clear how bonuses stacked at all. They pretty much didn't.

'Balanced' is certainly not the right word for 2nd, but 'less broken' fits it well.

[Fwib]

About rules-lawyering and 2e vs 3e:

I generally agree with some of the stuff above, but I'd put it this way:

Rules lawyering is so much easier/more effective in 3e over 2e because the rules in 3e are clearer with generally less of the 'grey areas' mentioned above - so its so much more likely that you will be able to build a chain/pyramid/structure of rules/feats/spell-descriptions/whatever to be able to do something impressive in 3e, whereas in 2e you would have had to get DM ruling much more on each rule-interaction. Look at some of the ultra-powered builds you see posted about the 'net for examples.

[Murtak]

In 2nd edition, spells had big grey areas. Alot was simply up to the DM to decide. This prevented rules lawyering, because well, there just wasn't much to argue with. The rules were ambiguous, so the rules lawyer had no ammunition. Keep in mind that the less rules you have, the harder it is to rules lawyer.

And the easier it is to con your DM into something that sounds quite reasonable at the time you explain it. Mind you, I have no clue how chromatic orb's "only be paralyzed for d8+2 turns on a successful save" is ambigious. Nor how "you turn into a dragon, copying it's entire stat block" is ambigious.

Polymorph was way better balanced for a variety of reasons. Mostly because you didn't get huge natural armor bonuses that stacked wtih everytihng and monsters didn't have physical stats.

??? Polymorph better balanced?? You mean you are fine with the party polymorphing a bunny into a gold dragon any time they are in over their heads, but consider getting +12 AC overpowered?

Spells like shrink item or Major creation (acid flasks) just weren't all that powerful in 2nd edition because you didn't have rules for how much damage a big boulder or 10 gallons of acid would actually do.

Yeah, so you had campaigns in which major creation was near certain death, other campaigns in which it did next to nothing and yet others in which it was banned for being too powerful. And that, according to you, makes the spell balanced?

Buff/Bonus whores just didn't exist in 2nd, because it wasn't really clear how bonuses stacked at all. They pretty much didn't.

I would actually have to dig up my 2nd edition books for this, but didn't all bonuses stack, period?

'Balanced' is certainly not the right word for 2nd, but 'less broken' fits it well.

That may be your personal experience, but it is not a consequence of the ruleset, nor does it match my experiences. Sure, there are a few spells that work better in 2nd edition, but for any such spell (or ability or rule) you can find one that is more broken in 2nd edition.

[Fwib]

??? Polymorph better balanced?? You mean you are fine with the party polymorphing a bunny into a gold dragon any time they are in over their heads, but consider getting +12 AC overpowered?

As I recall - and not bothering to go check my 2e books - 2e polymorph had a non-zero chance to switch your mind permanently for one that fitted the monster you got turned into - I always thought that was a balancing factor for it.

[edit]ok, going back and reading my 2eAd&D PHB, it seems to me that:
Poly Self was just a nifty disguise

Poly Other had a reasonable chance of permanently switching the target's mind for that of the assumed form, assuming you didnt just die of system shock - and didn't give supernatural abilities anyway

Poly Any Object - inherits Poly Other

Shape Change - no supernatural/magical abilities or MR, but otherwise uber - but then it is a level 9 spell
[/edit]

[edit]
And on topic with the original thread poster...
going back and using the 'sorted by level and spell list, not by name' spells section felt really primitive and user-unfriendly.

nostalgic too.
[/edit]

[RandomCasualty]

1130670999[/unixtime]]
And the easier it is to con your DM into something that sounds quite reasonable at the time you explain it. Mind you, I have no clue how chromatic orb's "only be paralyzed for d8+2 turns on a successful save" is ambigious. Nor how "you turn into a dragon, copying it's entire stat block" is ambigious.

Well chromatic orb wasn't core. It came out in a supplement book, and yeah, it was broke. But it's no worse than some of the crap 3.5 supplements bring.

As for copying its stat block, you didn't at least not fro poly other (I'm not even worried about PaO and shapechange because as stated, 2E characters pretty much never got that high in level). Polymorph granted you, natural AC (whcih again, didn't stack with normal armor), non-magical movement capabilities and non-magical attack routines. You didn't get the monster's ability scores (because they didnt' have any), thaco or saves. Also you could lose your mind or die from system shock. Trying to abuse poly in 2E was pretty much not going to happen.

As for being able to con your DM, sure, there was a lot more responsibility placed in the DM's hands in 2E, but at the very least the rules were less directly flawed. I'd rather have rules that might not work in a bad DM's hands rather than unambiguous rules that don't work unless you change them.

??? Polymorph better balanced?? You mean you are fine with the party polymorphing a bunny into a gold dragon any time they are in over their heads, but consider getting +12 AC overpowered?

A bunny transformed into a gold dragon still has crap for hp and thaco. So it can't really hit much and doesn't have a breath weapon. It's kinda impressive, but not awesome. You're talking about a 1 hp dragon, also given that it's con is probably crap, it's likely to die from system shock.

Yeah, so you had campaigns in which major creation was near certain death, other campaigns in which it did next to nothing and yet others in which it was banned for being too powerful. And that, according to you, makes the spell balanced?

No, it doesn't make it balanced, but it does make it "not broken". In 3rd edition, because of the strict rules, we know something is broken wtihout a doubt. In 2nd, it all depended on the DM.

I would actually have to dig up my 2nd edition books for this, but didn't all bonuses stack, period?

If I remember correctly it didn't really fully explain what stacked wtih what.

Pretty much almost nothing stacked. If I remember right, you couldn't even combine rings of protection wtih magical armor.

That may be your personal experience, but it is not a consequence of the ruleset, nor does it match my experiences. Sure, there are a few spells that work better in 2nd edition, but for any such spell (or ability or rule) you can find one that is more broken in 2nd edition.

I don't know about that...

Stoneskin is about the only spell that I think was legitimately improved in 3E. Possibly haste if you're counting 3.5 also. But pretty much everything else was less broken in 2E. There certainly wasn't incentive in 2E to polymorph everyone into trolls and walk around that way all day long. The party wizard wasn't alter selfed into a troglodyte all day either.

Remember that ambiguity doesn't mean it's more balanced, but does mean it's less broken. Something that "might" be broken under a certain interpretation is less broken than something that is without a doubt broken in an unambiguous language. Something like 3.5 poly or the hulking hurler is broken as written and that's the worst kind of broken thing there is.

[MrWaeseL]

RC, from your post I gather that polymorph wasn't broken, but shitty. That's not much of an improvement.

[PhoneLobster]

As a reckless and moderately insane 2nd edition wizard player let me suggest this about the so called "limitation" to do with mental ability.

It is the most powerful part of a truly insane spell. Because once the critter fails that, it gains ALL the creatures abilities.

Thats why you always used the white rabit or a mouse to turn into the gold dragon (rather than say, a red dragon). Because it was more likely to fail its check to retain its mentality, at which point it DID gain all the stats and powers of a true gold dragon.

Of course as a reckless and moderately insane 2nd edition wizard my character went about turning mice into clones of himself. Always handy to have a spare life wandering around casting all the same spells as you out of their identical copy of your spell book.

Mind you in typical 2nd ed wankery the spell states you can't grant class based abilities with this spell, only to go on to say that once it fails its mental "I'm another unique mechanic" roll it "becomes the target creature whos form was assumed" inculding its "full range of magical and special abilities". Meaning maybe you do get class abilities, and even if you don't maybe you do get spells and magical or special class abilities...

The example kindly points out that you can turn an orc into a white dragon in "all respects" 85% of the time. Which is a pretty prime proof that you can turn a white rabbit into a gold dragon "in all respects" 100% of the time.

The all respects in the example also supports the potential for gaining class abilities.

Still polymorph other in 2nd ED. High probability of being a wizards first self cloning spell, 100% probability of turning small vermine into genuine Gold Dragons.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Quick question:

you turned a rabbit into a gold dragon.

Whay does said gold dragon want to help you? Because it seems to me that they probably wouldn't.

[PhoneLobster]

Gold dragons were supposed to be like the neigh on god like personifications of lawful goodness. If placed in front of say, a dragon that was supposed to be the demon like personification of the mechanically inferior force known as evil you'd expect them to eat it.

And odds are they would be at least moderately helpful in other situations what with them being such nice guys and you being on a never ending quest to save the world and all.

There is no problem you can't solve with an ancient gold dragon.

[Lago_AM3P]

Couldn't it be argued that Polymorph Any Object does that now?

Although it doesn't grant magical abilities. Damn.

[RandomCasualty]

Hmm.. well looking back at it, I guess poly was broken back then too.

Though I don't see it being able to actually create ancient dragons, because ancient dragons also possess an age. If you turned a 20 year old orc into a dragon it would become a 20 year old dragon, which was probably like a hatchling or really young dragon.

Great Wyrm Red dragon isnt' a separate creature, it's just a red dragon that's really old.

But nonetheless I'm sure you could find ways of abusing polymorph anyway, like making things into solars and such.

Though for practical purposes I think it would probably not be as abusive as poly in 3.5 in the short term. While it totally destroys world consistency, because there's no reason wizards wouldn't mass produce solars and pit fiends, it isn't immediately helpfuil in a battle. Creating a solar or a gold dragon in the midst of a battle is likely not to do anything. The creature just got born in all respects, and it's going to be confused. While it does have the mentality of that type of creature, it doesn't inherently have any memories. So it doesn't know who the good guys or the bad guys are and it is just suddenly thrust in a new dangerous situation. Most likely the thing takes off and will require quite some time to learn about the new world you've put it in.

It actually isn't even a given that the new creature knows how to speak. It may just have an int score and an alignment.

[Crissa]

Fwib has it. The stat blocks and chance of just outright killing the target made cloning with PO just dangerous.

And producing a Gold Dragon in 2ed was just as likely to kill you as a Chromatic dragons. Just because they're Lawful Good didn't mean they wouldn't kill you - you were a worm and a tool to A Gold Dragon.

And who wanted to argue with themselves about who was who's clone? That's a good way of losing at least half your gear - which wasn't easy to replace in 2ed.

I didn't say it was balanced. But it was really damn hard to use it to get away with more than you'd get away with by just asking the local NPC to help you.

At least you could get these story effects with in-game spells.

-Crissa

[fbmf]

Creating a solar or a gold dragon in the midst of a battle is likely not to do anything. The creature just got born in all respects, and it's going to be confused. While it does have the mentality of that type of creature, it doesn't inherently have any memories. So it doesn't know who the good guys or the bad guys are and it is just suddenly thrust in a new dangerous situation. Most likely the thing takes off and will require quite some time to learn about the new world you've put it in.

It actually isn't even a given that the new creature knows how to speak. It may just have an int score and an alignment.

But then, aqren't you rules lawyering, because the rules don;t say anything abiout them just being born. It says you become the creature, and their MM entry gives them certain abilities, which you have if you cast the spell.

Game On,
fbmf

[PhoneLobster]

Great Wyrm Red dragon isnt' a separate creature,

I'm fairly certain that in second edition. It was mechanically another creature.

Fwib has it. The stat blocks and chance of just outright killing the target made cloning with PO just dangerous.

Firstly in 2nd ed system shock was a percentage chance you got from Cons. Monsters have no Cons. And if my useless pet rabbit lacks the imaginary Cons to handle it more than 50% of the time I'm either buying a badger or polymorphing the party donkey. Hell I'll polymorph all the cockroaches I can find into camels (I bet they have a good imaginary Cons) so I can have some high Cons low save critters for any combat I can herd or ride them into.

And there's nothing dangerous about risking the lives of rodents. A smart wizard arrives in battle with his clones mounted up on a gold dragon already. Turning the rabit into a gold dragon on site is like waiting to do your homework until the last minute.

All the same as far as last minute homework goes rabbit into gold dragon (as a fourth level spell) is remarkably more likely to win you an A++ in a single action compared to pretty much any other last minute option available to you at that point.

And who wanted to argue with themselves about who was who's clone? That's a good way of losing at least half your gear - which wasn't easy to replace in 2ed.

Oddly as a wizard who's only magical item of any remote note was a ring of mammal control it never came up.

(On a side note that was one kick ass item when combined with the stat blocks for certain large mammals and polymorph other. Gogo mammoth attack! And it was just plain funny to make all your enemies horses suddenly hate them with the raw fury of the suns core just as they charge into combat. I can't recall it was what? 20 HD of mammal domination with no save?)

I was more than happy to share my minimal cash wealth, which couldn't buy me anything more than toys anyway because it was 2nd ed.

Polymorph gave him a perfect copy of all my mundane gear, the only important piece of which was a spell book, which didn't need to be (and wasn't) magical in order to function.

I think I may have had a magical staff (the pure bonus to hitting things type) that I never used, because I had spent too many of my WPs on punching specialization (a legal specialization for non fighters, that about 3 to 7 percent chance of KO saved my ass plenty of times in the early levels). He could have had it if he really insisted. But knowing him as well as I did I know we would have favoured selling it and splitting the cash to spend on frivolous fashion accessories.

While it does have the mentality of that type of creature, it doesn't inherently have any memories.

Kick ass. Hi gold dragon, I'm your daddy, follow me.

But regardless of that though the spell specifically states you may not select specific attributes (whatever it thinks it means by saying that) it very certainly doesn't prevent you from turning the target into a specific individual. And when the creature fails its mental test thingy it becomes that individual creature "mentally" and "in all respects".

See I'm sorry to say it but when something mentally transforms into something else "in all respects" it kinda DOES inherently include memories.

Even without selecting a specific individual, if the target creature is an adult anything then memories are STILL part of the bag of "all respects", even if there is no specific existing creature to base those memories off because you don't have to select a specific existing creature to cast the spell, you can make one up, there isn't even anything to stop you from specifying exact memories.

But it was really damn hard to use it to get away with more than you'd get away with by just asking the local NPC to help you.

Whats better than asking the local NPC to help you?

Getting him to help you again and again, simultaneously, as many times as you like. Possibly in more than one place at the same time. Jake the assassin says he will either kill the enemy general or foment revolt in the recently conquered capital? Well now he is doing both (and he may not even know it)

Couldn't it be argued that Polymorph Any Object does that now?

That spell is a lot higher level.

Clones and gold dragons for 7th level characters is pretty big potatoes.

[RandomCasualty]

1130753865[/unixtime]]
But regardless of that though the spell specifically states you may not select specific attributes (whatever it thinks it means by saying that) it very certainly doesn't prevent you from turning the target into a specific individual. And when the creature fails its mental test thingy it becomes that individual creature "mentally" and "in all respects".

Well, it doesn't say you can turn into specific individuals either. WHich is more of 2nd edition's rules ambiguity.

See I'm sorry to say it but when something mentally transforms into something else "in all respects" it kinda DOES inherently include memories.

Again, this is up to your DM to decide. While you can make a case for it allowing memories, ultimately there's no text to back that up. There's nothing to refute it either, but that just means it's entirely a DM call.

And this is where ambiguity can actually make things less broken. Which was the point from the beginning about 2nd edition. There's no doubt that ambiguity interpreted in the most favorable way towards munchkinism is a bad thing, but ambiguity is presented so that you can make the most favorable ruling against munchkinism, and that makes things a lot less broken.

The main defense against crazy combos in the 2E rules is that nobody knows what's really supposed to happen in most cases. So that responsibility falls on the DM essentially.

Now this may sound sorta dumb, but it's not. In fact if you have open ended magic like polymorph or wish or whatever, it's about the only way to make sure those spells aren't broken. Now, it doesn't automatically make them balanced, but it doesn't automatically make them broken either. You're entirely at the whim of your DM's judgment. Get a good DM, and they'll stay balanced. Get a bad DM and they might break the game.

This means that some non zero percent of the time, those spells arne't broken in 2nd edition. In 3rd edition, polymorph is broken 100% of the time. Thus anything less than "broken 100% of the time" is better. Granted, probably not by much but still an improvement.

The moral of the story is that ambiguous rules are superior to unambiguous unbalanced rules.

[Kirin_Corrigan]

The moral of the story is that ambiguous rules are superior to unambiguous unbalanced rules.

Only in the hands of a competent DM. And such a person can handle unambiguous unbalanced rules just fine too. That's to say that any way you look at it ambiguous rules are not really superior to unambiguous unbalanced rules at all.

[RandomCasualty]

1130776345[/unixtime]]

Only in the hands of a competent DM. And such a person can handle unambiguous unbalanced rules just fine too.

Well not really. The only way to fix unbalnaced rules is to flat out change them. Which while you certainly can do that, many DMs would prefer not to change the rules. Further, a lot of the time when you're dealing with open ended magic, you just can't mechanically prepare for all contingencies. I mean hell, even prestidigitation is open ended and that's a cantrip. The easiest way to handle a spell like that is to simply let the DM handle it and just let him know that balancing the spell is in his hands.

The main problem with unambiguous rules is that they take balance away from the DM. they make you think that the designers carefully handled the situation. When unambigious rules are unbalanced, they bite you in the ass hard.

Basically you're better off with no mechanic than a flawed mechanic.

[Murtak]

So if swapping your mind for the mind of what you copy in all respects does not actually give you that person's memories or that races general knowledge then what is your beef with 3rd edition polymorph?

Clearly it does not copy stats, give natural armor either. Heck, using your logic nothing does anything unless the DM wants it to - which is exactly what you wanted, right?


Anyways, I have seen much much more munchkinism in 2nd edition than I saw in third edition. Maybe it is because everyone I ever played with matured since then. But personally I think it is because you actually have to work for a lot of your cheese now. Anytime you see some complicated 3 PrC + 5 feat build and yell "broken!" you can go back in time to 2nd edition and see people abusing just a single spell, combat maneuver or class kit.

And not only was 2nd edition unbalanced and flat out broken in more areas, it also had a much worse ruleset - fragmented, exception-heavy and non-uniform - in short, a rules-lawyers wet dream. I do not know where you get your "no rules / ambigious rules are better than broken rules" from, seeing as 2nd edition had more rules, more absolute rules, more broken rules and yes, among all of those crappy rules also more ambigious rules.

But let's examine that argument anyways. You say ambigious rules are better because they encourage DMs to ignore them if they do not work. Apparently you do not consider rule zero (aka "hey, change anything you don't like") worth mentioning, but we will let this one slide.

Instead, let us take a look at who will actually change bad rules for the better when they are vague, but not when they are explicit. Clearly bad DMs will either not bother or make changes for the worse. So if we want to cater to bad DMs we want strict rules. Great DMs will change the rules when needed anyways, so we simply want to make precise rules so they will not have as much work when change is needed. So great DMs are not our target group either. I could barely see vague rules working for novice DMs I guess. That is, insecure (so they feel bad changing explicit rules) and inattentive (so they miss rule zero) DMs. And even then, that only applies to bad but explicit rules.

So (+ means "positive", - means "negative", o means "tossup"):

Bad DMs Great Dms Novice DMs
good vague rules - - -
good explicit rules + + +

Bad DMs Great Dms Novice DMs
bad vague rules o - +
bad explicit rules o + -

In short, explicit rules good rules are always better than vague good rules (if such a thing exists) and even when you are already in bad rules territory you have to reach to find any advantage to vague rules.

[RandomCasualty]

1130783794[/unixtime]]
In short, explicit rules good rules are always better than vague good rules (if such a thing exists) and even when you are already in bad rules territory you have to reach to find any advantage to vague rules.

Oh, there's no doubt that good explicit rules are the best if they're possible. But they're not always possible when you want open ended effects. If you want something like a fireball, it's easy enough to write good explicit rules. If you want somethig like prestidigitation, wish or any other open ended effect, you're best able to achieve that with something open ended. The thing is that open ended effects can never really be "balanced", at best you're just trying to get something that's "not broken". The best way to do that is simply by letting the DM control it.

Whether you should actualy have open ended effects or not is a game decision of course, but for fantasy games normally people kind of enjoy being able to do a lot of random "cool" stuff that the rulebook can't always cover.

Rule 0 is actually the ultimate example of an open ended rule, and as seen, it's a damn good idea to have it in there. It's very abuseable for sure, but having it makes the game better and I really couldn't imagine an RPG without rule 0.

A lot of 2nd edition spells simply had a pointer to rule 0 instead of much of a spell description. "Do something cool without raping the story and/or game balance" is an ok spell effect for some magical stuff. In a lot of fantasy literature, this tends to be what magic does.

[Murtak]

How can open-ended rules not be explicit? When I am talking about vague rules I mean spells like polymorph (which to this day is not clearly defined in what exactly it does). "Talk it over with your DM", while not predefined, is very specific in how the ability works.

Vague or ambigious rules on the other hand are those where you are not sure how they are supposed to work (example: what are "natural" abilities for the purposes of 3rd edition polymorph?). So Monk/natural attack interaction is ambigious, spell inheritance is vague, but prestidigitation is actually very clear. "Do anything listed here or what your DM thinks is appropriate" works just fine and apart from that also has no bearing at all on your original argument, namely "vague rules are better than bad rules", seeing as there are no bad-but-explicit prestidigitation, wish or even polymorph rules to compare them to. Heck, if anything polymorph was more explicit in 2nd edition.

[RandomCasualty]

1130793253[/unixtime]]
How can open-ended rules not be explicit? When I am talking about vague rules I mean spells like polymorph (which to this day is not clearly defined in what exactly it does). "Talk it over with your DM", while not predefined, is very specific in how the ability works.

It's not explicit because you aren't quite sure what the spell does. An explicit spell is one that behaves in the same way in every game that cannot be interpreted in a variety of ways. Any spell which is a pointer to rule 0 is essentially not explicit because you can't be sure what the spell is going to do until your DM actually defines it, which may be on a case by case basis.

[Murtak]

Ok, feel free to divide rules into explicit, open-ended and ambigious then. Now please address the rest of my post.