It is just another symptom of the system that makes affordable housing rare, not the root issue.

I think we don’t actually disagree and I was just not precise enough in my original post.

What I described above applies to abilities that are relevant in combat and any other type of encounter that the respective system mechanically treats as a conflict similar to combat. That absolutely does not mean other abilities should not exist, just that they should not be practically usable during an ongoing combat-like short term conflict.

Also: Abilities that are useful in short term combat-like conflicts and abilities that are not should not compete for mechanical resources of any kind, that is never fun.

It was my impression that we are at this point discussing (rp)game design in general, not specifically D&D. If your context was D&D specifically, that explains a lot of the disagreement between us.

I absolutely do want mechanical homogenization. Interesting variants can be handled with flavor without forcing everyone to learn completely new rules for every ability. The existence of generic rule systems (e.g. Savage Worlds) proves I am not alone with that view.

That sounds nice in theory, but actually charging stuff for several rounds while the encounter is already ongoing practically just means one player is doing nothing for most of the encounter. Not ideal.

I was thinking more along the lines of preparation before the actual encounter even starts, e.g. setting up an ambush or the magical equivalent of building a trebuchet during a siege.

Abilities that are too powerful for that should either not exist or require significant preparation

Most abilities should be either “per round/turn” or “per encounter”.

Abilities that are too powerful for that should either not exist or require significant preparation (enough for the opposition to have a chance to discover and interrupt it).

Abilities that fall in the second category should automatically come with a less powerful variant in the first category.

Maybe as a middle ground some player abilities could use the “roll for recharge” mechanic from powerful monster abilities.

There’s a pretty small set of bonus action spells

Quickened Spell is a thing.

I agree with the general sentiment that there are limits to what should be possible even with the rule of cool.

In this specific case we don’t even need to go into the territory of undefined stuff that the DM decides on the fly, the rules as written already explicitly say “You create up to 10 gallons of clean water within range in an open container.”

You could always argue that humor does not equal jokes I guess, but these were just my 2 cents

That was exactly my main point; but thanks for sharing your 2 cents anyway, they were still interesting.

I would argue that:

1. This is not actually a joke in the strict sense of the word. There is no punchline. The humor is entirely in the context.

2. Your friend does not understand any of this and is just repeating the “joke” because other people laughed about it at some point. It has nothing to do with the Windows operating system, so if that was part of his explanation he is probably just making shit up to cover his own ignorance.

“being weird, rude and cringy is their whole thing” does not make that thing any less weird, rude and cringy.

TL;DR: Looks promising in mice, not tested in humans yet.

Should probably point to https://neurosciencenews.com/vaccine-alzheimers-23722/