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Author: Yerushalmi

Nov 13th 2013 at 1:33:11 AM

You're absolutely right (about both your observation regarding me and about the quality of the inflict light wounds example). I'll add/replace Inflict Light Wounds into the D&D example.

The Alice and Bob example has already been replaced by a generic description that I think does the job well. But there are two parts to this trope: the fridge logic of "useful therefore requires more power" and the fridge logic of "requires more power therefore stronger". Inflict Lights Wounds is an example of the latter, but not of the former, because it makes perfect sense that a mass version of a spell requires more power than the single version. The axe example is not quite the same thing.

I did just think of another way to replace the axe example, and will put it in momentarily; let me know if it looks better and still communicates the idea behind the trope.

EDIT: I couldn't quite bring myself to eliminate the example entirely, because I felt the explanation doesn't prove anything in and of itself (see, for instance, arbiter099's "stronger spells are better (duh)" reaction above, which is my instinctive reaction too and the reason I didn't add this trope years ago). But I put it after rather than before the description, and cut it so it's not much longer than the bare-bones "one of a dozen people" example in the following paragraph. It doesn't even mention the axe anymore :p