Does it help, for anyone bothered by this, if the associations are made earlier and/or are locked in once made?
That is, if your rapier-wielding fighter flavors the brutal strike that way, then that is the way it stays. Perhaps you even flavored it that way before it first came up. Another fighter, might flavor it a different way, but whatever he picks, stays the same for him. Presumably, if this matters to you on this level, then your guy can't just pick up, say, a great axe, and use the power. You can probably still use it for a spear or other thrusting polearm, or any thrusting sword or dagger.
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How is that different than, say, reskinning 3E magic missile as purple darts that you unerringly throw, but keeping the mechanics?
I'm finding that I'm most accepting of the "brutal" part of the strike. I can apply "brutal" to many weapons, and it applies differently in each case, although, the end result, expressed as hit point loss, turns out to be the same.
A part of the difficulty is in the result: How is the result different than an improved critical (to use 3E vernacular)? As an example, in the local game which I regularly attend, we use exploding criticals: On a critical confirmation, if you roll a 20, you keep rolling, as long as you keep getting a 20. Each additional 20 increases the multiplier by one.
That gives a result which is similar to Brutal Surge, with a difference that the player does not control when the result happens. (This result tends to happen less often than Brutal Surge, but I take that as a small difference.)
That distills the difference to one of player control: Does the player control when an exceptional result occurs, or does chance? And, that difference is what matters to many: The difference grates at some folks, and is fine to others.
That is, even if one provides an explanation (e.g., an extra large and powerful attack, or, a blow on a vital point), the issue of control remains. I think those two issues (whether the power is explained vs. whether the option to apply the power is at the players direction) should be separated, as they contribute independently.
I'd like to add, while the focus has been on 4E, that detracts from the question of whether disassociation is a useful concept. There are certainly many abilities in 3E which are disassociative. I find that Chill Touch is explained "well enough" to meet my satisfaction. On the other hand, Arrow Mind (from Spell Compendium, which means that attacks with a bow do not provoke attacks-of-opportunity, and, allows a bow to threaten adjacent squares), is to me very terribly disassociative. I see that as the result of Arrow Mind being defined, foremost, in terms of game abstractions, and not as the result of an intermediate effect which is then interpreted using the standard game rules. Circular initiative and attacks-of-opportunity also have problems, mostly which we "get over" and accept as necessary for playability.
As far as reskinning magic missile, there are feats (or perhaps simply class options) for creating "signature" spells: Providing a spell with a unique appearance. That is important for one who is trying to determine what spell is being cast, and may affect the spellcraft DC to identify the spell, but the underlying effect is unchanged: Magic missile remains a missile of force, which must target a creature, which cannot miss, and which interacts in particular ways with incorporeal or ethereal creatures.
For other spells, I don't know. Reskinning lightning bolt as a stream of purple wasps, without using Energy Substitution, doesn't work for me. But if a player wanted to have their lightning bolt look more like a fast stream of small balls of electricity (say, like a very fast roman candle), say with lots of sparklies along the way, I'd allow it. A problem is that the effect is a bolt, which limits the details of the description.
I'm having to think now about where I stand on the player control question. In a game like the (new edition) Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, the idea of fate points works for me. But, the system as a whole has features which resonate with the idea of fate points. (I don't remember the details, but players have pools which are used for various purposes, which seem like fate points on a smaller scale.) Also, the idea of rolling initiative in a common pool, with the individual players choosing which player uses each particular initiative seems to fit pretty well along these lines.
On the other hand, daily and encounter powers, as introduced by 4E, I find rather jarring. I'm feeling a dissonance between critical hits (which occur at random) and some power effects.
Thx!
TomBitonti
