The difference is my wizard knows in character that he can only cast a spell once per day and knows why. My rogue not only can never know he can use trip once per day, but can also never know the reasoning behind it.
When the wizard knows why it's because he's either broken the 4th wall or is using a magic system that doesn't incorporate the vancian system.
Yeah, Hit Points make no 'in character' sense and I wish they were consigned to the dust-bin of eternity, but I think that ship has sailed tbh.
I want to quote this because it shows that in the game we are all willing to suspend disbelief on some mechanics that don't make sense while arguing against the incorporation of others. I too think that hitpoints as are are a poor mechanic, but I'm ok with them in the game at the moment because they don't disadvantage or void any classes.
You know it's funny - whenever discussion of specialized combat maneuvers like tripping or bull rush come up I'm amazed that so many people are comfortable with codified rules that don't take what's happening in the fiction into account. I am far more comfortable with engaging a meta resource to occasionally trip someone than I am of the 3e trip attack fighter who trips, trips, and trips some more. I find that far more immersion breaking. Honestly given how abstract D&D combat is I have trouble actually viewing myself as living in the moment of what's going through my character's mind.
That being said, I have no real issue with relying on DM adjudication for those moments because the DM can look at the fiction of what's happening at the table in a way that no codified rules set can without making the rules overly specific.
Part of the problem here can be summarized in a post I made in the playtest fighter discussion, I made a list comparing fighter abilities throughout the editions and ended on this paragraph regarding fighters and DM fiat:
Everything I've listed above is what makes the fighter distinct. Any class can improvise, any class can have a meaningful history, any class can be the current focus of the story, any class can use terrain to its advantage, any class can use henchmen in their service. The
5th edition fighter doesn't even get a bonus to these DM fiats and discretions.
If the fighter is going to use the terrain/story/whatever to his/her advantage in and outside of combat then they better have a bonus compared to other classes or at least the DM's favour. We judge the expectations of the classes abilities based on the natural laws of the players world, not the characters, and so we say martial characters cannot do this or that because of our biased thoughts and the limits of the 'real world' human body when we should be looking at myths and legends for inspiration.
We give the casters a free pass to do as they will because we have no real means to judge what can and can't be done with magic, even though when a player's character casts a spell they are influencing the game world in a way even the DM has to agree to, a Player Fiat in a sense, provided the character meets the requirements of the spell (eg. material and verbal components, has the spell available, etc.). They are essentially bypassing a DM's ruling/judgement that melee characters with their so few options depend on. Not only that, but they can do the same thing a fighter can do ("can I use the barrels as cover?") but can go above and beyond ("The barrels are now covered in a darkness spell")
We don't say to the casters "You have been hitting the Elven brandy and pipe weed a bit too much lately, lose some spell slots until you regain your memory" or "you've lost a memorized spell because Zagnor the Maleficant's enchantment has screwed with the imprinted dweomer" even though these possibilities would be accepted by most people based on: our previous experiences with booze/drugs, and an open void of possible metaphysics created by the vancian model. We don't even say spells require memorization times any more even though most of us (through our own experiences) realize that memorizing complex patterns or ideas can take a long long time.
Melee classes were given options like bull rush and trip in 3E because as bad as they were (mechanically speaking) it's not unusual for a trained warrior to be skilled in these maneuvers, and it was viewed as an acceptable compromise by a majority of playtesters/designers at the time.
I'm trying to illustrate that your explanations represent a totally different approach to the game than the one those opposed to dailies and encounter powers are advocating. This is the crux of the disagreement.
People don't want to have them in their game because they want a particular mode of play where you describe what you do and then, as needed, use the system to resolve things. This then creates a new described situation in an endless circuit of description-reaction-redescription. It works quite well and has been around in one form or another since 1967.
If I need to start adding in description after the fact to justify things, then I've left that mode of play. The chandelier or the carpet should have been part of the description from the beginning. It's not appropriate when everyone is making decisions based on the description to suddenly change it.
People who want this sort of mode are telling you that encounter and daily powers can necessitate the type of play they don't like. The creation of situation changing details as an after-the-fact description is exactly the type of thing that ruins the experience for people wanting this type of play.
If this is the means of play then the fighter PC should be able to say "I swing off the chandelier, knocking my target prone, and showering the nearby bodyguards in glass" without the DM's ruling or interference. No "Mother may I?" style gaming. The DM should then be obligated to put in some form of terrain/device for the fighter to manipulate, and the fighter have a table ready similar to page 42 of the 4E DMG as a quick reference for damage or conditions. This is augmented by levels/feats in the same way casters spells are automatically gained and affected by caster level. It's only fair.
