I don't think that's true. Feints, lures, etc force movement without the application of physical force.
They don't force anything.
They make movement seem safe when it's really not.
Deception isn't a force. It's a misdirection. If I shove you into traffic, that's going to be modeled a different way than if I convince you that you're immune to cars, so you walk out into traffic. Cause and effect are quite different in those circumstances, and that difference is worth preserving, IMO.
It's a distinction that the game doesn't draw in myriad other places where it might. For example, the game doesn't simulate DEX-based "finesse" fighting via the sort of process you are decribing here. The finesse fighter simply gets to add a bonus to his/her attacks. Forced movement is the same logic, only applied to positioning rather than to attack rolls.
My point was only that the distinction between a deception and a physical force is important because a deception doesn't remove choice. I don't know what that has to do with a finesse fighter particularly. An agile fighter doesn't necessarily control people's actions.
More broadly, D&D has largely preferred to elaborate WHY something is deceptive, rather than just ruling it deceptive. Mimics who look like piles of coins, for instance, don't have an effect that yanks people up to them because of trickery. They rely on players choosing that option to ambush.
pemerton said:
D&D highly regulates that actions my PC can take, especially in a combat round! It certainly doesn't rely on free narration.
I'm not so sure I agree with that. You're always free to do whatever you can think of, the combat round is just one way of modeling what you might be capable of.
pemerton said:
A week or two ago you had a thread in which you posed the question of whether free roleplaying was a satisfactory way to resolve combat. Your implied answer to the question was (to my reading, at least) no.
The same arguments that apply to that case, apply to this one too. If I want to play a battlefield commander, relying on free roleplaying to trick the NPCs and monsters is not satisfactory. It makes action resolution for my PC essentially a matter of GM fiat.
I'm not sure the same arguments totally apply, though they are close kindred. The idea is not simply to rely on DM Fiat, but to allow DMs to
still make a choice.
Again, the comparison to 4e marking mechanics is relevant. The mechanics don't just dictate that monsters hit the marking PC, but they impose a choice on the DM that incentives that outcome.
Who is saying this? If people want to build fighters and rogues and then free-roleplay the GM into tricks, go to town! If people want to build warlords (or cavaliers or whatever they end up being called) and choose only the non-forced-movement abilities, go to town! I'm not stopping them.
Saying that you need metagame mechanics to have a good warlord isn't also saying that you can't have a good warlord without metagame mechanics?