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[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by pukunui

Yes. I even quoted it in my last post.

Yeah, after I wrote my post, I noticed. Maybe I should clean my glasses again, but I am not sure its that time of the year already...

I've already brought this up. Having to pretend that my character is constantly trying to pull off various maneuvers "in the background" and the only time he actually pulls it off is when I, the player, consciously choose to use a power just doesn't do it for me.

Yes, that's fine. And you could use that one mechanic to do the same thing over and over again if that's what you wanted to do ... but you can't do that with encounter powers.

Yes. The deal is: Once your out of the encounter powers you want to use, go back to the OD&D model - pretend. The encounter and daily power is not there to remove the pretend-part of combat, it's there to enable tactical variety. (Well, that might not be an exact description of what it's all supposed to be or manages to be, but that's what I am getting at in this context ).
Maybe using stunts help to remove the pure "pretending" and "tactical power use", maybe it can't.

That would be fine if all of the martial powers seemed supernatural in some way, but there are plenty of them that seem very mundane and should not be given arbitrary usage limits.

Well, that's because the mundane stuff is the basic attack. You can narrate it as cool as you like, it will never be as effective as magical attacks. But well, I already said you that this doesn't work for everyone, either.

Sorry I'm being so vague. I know concrete examples would be good but I haven't got my books with me as I'm at work.

Well, a few pretty "mundane" looking things might be that 1st level trip power (I forgot its name) or that Whirlwind-Attack like power (I forgot its name, too ). Both is stuff you could pull off in 4E at-will if you had the feats.

I'm not looking for someone to solve my problems. I'm simply sharing my thoughts.

Well, in that case I am offering this as "advice" for everyone looking for ways out. There aren't.

I think what I'm getting at is that I shouldn't have to explain things away. I shouldn't have to say, "Well, my character has been attempting this all through the fight but here's the one time where she actually pulls it off". I shouldn't have to justify why things are the way they are. However, with 4e, it seems like I either have to do that in order to keep my suspension of disbelief and desired immersion level or else I just have to stop thinking of it as an RPG and just play it as a glorified minis/board game or something.

Yeah, I get that. Or maybe I don't, because I just don't think about this stuff when playing. I was quite able and willing to jump through all those morning spell-buffing hoops and wads of Cure Light Wounds for quite some time in 3E, despite it going against a lot my sense of what a "believable" world should feel like. At least in 4E I don't have to pretend that all rule elements have to map 1:1 to the game world. Of course I therefore have to effect that the rules can't really tell me - without some "narrating" and "after-the-fact-explaining" what really happens in the game world.

I can accept it because I have no alternatives. I accept it because I don't believe in perfect solutions. I know there will always be drawbacks. The questions is which get more annoying, and that's personal preference...