D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Garthanos]

Could it be that "some" people will complain about any change to their beloved game sure seems like it.

 

[Lyxen]

I already suggested this upthread: encounter and daily powers represent pushing harder. A beholder's ray means that the hardest a character can push themself is to their base level of performance. I could imagine a distorting haze in the air, like a reality distorting effect in a Dr Strange film.

OK, but why are encounters and daily the equivalent of "pushing harder" ? If you look at vancian wizards, it's not a question of pushing, it's just what why have memorised for the day, for example. And I'm not sure then why an aberration would prevent people from pushing harder ? If anything, it would be the opposite, you need to push harder to do anything ?

 

[Lyxen]

Could it be that "some" people will complain about any change to their beloved game sure seems like it.

Just like "some" people don't bear to have 4e criticised or not liked for any reason ?

There are also, and I believe it's the majority, who just have different tastes, that's all. I don't criticise you for your tastes, but I think I'm entitled to the same respect.

 

[Garthanos]

Just like "some" people don't bear to have 4e criticised or not liked for any reason ?

Maybe just bad criticism as the excuse for dislike (which doesn't actually need an excuse). And often it seems to be really an just an "omg they changed it" response. There are exceptions but many criticized the game while being utterly ignorant of it... and often "reasons" asserted where based on falsehoods too. I have defended other editions from similar bs. It just seems 4e received most of it.

"Hey for some people 4e combat took too long" ... my response ok it didnt for me but there are more than one reason it didnt for me but might for others. (here are some tools that can help that others use)

Completely bearable criticism.

compare to
"Hey warlords shouted wounds away... like magic" or
"Hey fighters in 4e do exactly the same things as wizards"

There are also, and I believe it's the majority, who just have different tastes, that's all. I don't criticise you for your tastes, but I think I'm entitled to the same respect.

Be sure to not pretend your taste is something other than taste and things are fine although I suppose there are complications, like In "my opinion hit point restoration is repairing of wounds in D&D" just doesn't float even if you couch it as an opinion.

You can say I want that to be true or I would prefer it but that would be admitting it is just a taste.

Nobody is shouting your limbs back on nor even scratches away either.

OK, but why are encounters and daily the equivalent of "pushing harder" ? If you look at vancian wizards, it's not a question of pushing, it's just what why have memorised for the day, for example.

The most hated "reasoning" in the history of the game used to be amnesia casters that is a taste thing too. ... and definitely doesn't happen in 5e removed entirely

And I'm not sure then why an aberration would prevent people from pushing harder ?

Perhaps they create a state of mental inertia only the simplest thoughts can even come to mind ie a mental binding prevents the complex thoughts emerging ... shrug that is how I picture it.

 

[pemerton]

OK, but why are encounters and daily the equivalent of "pushing harder" ? If you look at vancian wizards, it's not a question of pushing, it's just what why have memorised for the day, for example.

I don't think I fully understand this question.

The way we know that encounter and daily powers are the equivalent of pushing harder is that the rulebook tell us (PHB p 54; and there's also a briefer sidebar to similar effect on p 15); and in any event it seems obvious from the fact that you can't do it whenever you want to.

I'm not sure then why an aberration would prevent people from pushing harder ? If anything, it would be the opposite, you need to push harder to do anything ?

I already posted about this upthread: that the reality distortion means that even when you push your hardest, you can't do better than your base level of performance. That's a sign of how hard it is to push against the reality distortion!

 

[Lyxen]

Maybe just bad criticism as the excuse for dislike (which doesn't actually need an excuse). And often it seems to be really an just an "omg they changed it" response. There are exceptions but many criticized the game while being utterly ignorant of it... and often "reasons" asserted where based on falsehoods too. I have defended other editions from similar bs. It just seems 4e received most of it.

So first, it's not my case, I really gave the edition a chance, for quite a few years, with different campaigns and DMs, including myself.

But my point is exactly that, don't you think that there are reasons for 4e receiving most of it ? I mean inherent to the game, once more not inherent to its quality, but to its style, and in addition to the simple "OMG they changed it" ?

"Hey for some people 4e combat took too long" ... my response ok it didnt for me but there are more than one reason it didnt for me but might for others. (here are some tools that can help that others use)

For me, honestly, it was the other way round, I welcomed 4e combat compared to 3e which, especially at high level, took forever. Although, factually, the high levels of 4e did not feel as epic as high levels of 3e and AD&D, because of the constraints of the game, mostly it felt like at lower levels just with bigger numbers (which have never impressed me as all numbers increasing with levels are totally artificial IMHO). But it was faster once mastered.

compare to
"Hey warlords shouted wounds away... like magic" or
"Hey fighters in 4e do exactly the same things as wizards"

Don't take it badly, but I have pointed this out before, although I hope not at the same level, but I think it's too much of a mish-mash to have abilities shared across so many different classes and roles just for the sake of balance with just basic renaming, for one, and second yes, you can't compare different roles for whom abilities were indeed very different, and you indeed sometimes had different mechanics across classes for the same role, but because in the end it was in an extremely controlled environment, it ended up feeling quite the same to us.

Again, not a matter of quality of the game, it was well done, but done in a spirit that did not match our tastes.

Be sure to not pretend your taste is something other than taste and things are fine although I suppose there are complications, like In "my opinion hit point restoration is repairing of wounds in D&D" just doesn't float even if you couch it as an opinion.

I'm sorry, but it totally does float. If' you're at or below 0, you are factually dying, the game expressly tells you so, and dying of wounds, not of loss of resolve in most cases (because monsters generally hit you with swords and claw, not with nasty words). So I'm sorry, but it totally breaks my suspension of disbelief that you are again operational because someone is "commanding", you are unconscious and dying.

There might be some edge cases where the paradigm works, but it cannot be the standard, otherwise it becomes ridiculous, and both you and Pemerton have said that your way around it is to ignore the "dying" state, and do some retcons. Which again, is fine if you want to do it in your games, but it's not what the game tells you, and if I do what the game tells me, it breaks my suspension of disbelief. This is pure fact.

Nobody is shouting your limbs back on nor even scratches away either.

Yes they are. I'm sorry, but dying is dying, written plainly in the rules, and someone with a commanding presence is basically bandaging those wounds for you with just his voice and no magic (and don't get me started about the "fluff" of the Power Sources, whether you use the fluff and it tells you there's no magic, or you don't use it and use direct technical effects like 'dying" but you don't get to choose which fluff you use and which you don't for as direct explanation of the way the system works, although you can of couse do whatever you want in your game) , simple fact and direct application of the rules.

The most hated "reasoning" in the history of the game used to be amnesia casters that is a taste thing too. ... and definitely doesn't happen in 5e removed entirely

And yet, it is the exact paradigm of the 4e wizards: "After an extended rest, you can prepare a number of daily and utility spells according to what you can cast per day for your level." You can use the daily that you prepare exactly once before needing to prepare it again. Vancian to the core.

Perhaps they create a state of mental inertia only the simplest thoughts can even come to mind ie a mental binding prevents the complex thoughts emerging ... shrug that is how I picture it.

And even you shrug when trying to explain it, so imagine me shrugging even more in despair when trying to fond an explanation that matches the way I envision my fantasy worlds. Because I don't care about the technicalities of a game if it does not match what I want in it, a fantasy world in which characters have fantastic adventures (and if I want to play a combat boardgame, it's another story).

 

[Lyxen]

I don't think I fully understand this question.

The way we know that encounter and daily powers are the equivalent of pushing harder is that the rulebook tell us (PHB p 54; and there's also a briefer sidebar to similar effect on p 15); and in any event it seems obvious from the fact that you can't do it whenever you want to.

I'm sorry, but pg.54k in particular for encounter powers is very, very vague and gamist about the limitations:

• " If you’re a martial character, they are exploits you’ve practiced extensively but can pull off only once in a while." Why that is, is not clear at all, there is no link to special effort, and by the way it's one of my problem about 4e, it's all in that "boardgame rulebook" style, not about the story, just about "because". But honestly, for me, it's because you cannot try the same trick twice with a given adversary, he would see you coming (see Corwin being surprised that his little french trick works twice in a row on Eric in Amber).
• "If you’re an arcane or divine character, these are spells or prayers of such power that they take time to re-form in your mind after you unleash their magic energy." So it takes time to reform, but it says nothing about previous effort.

And Pg 15 is not more helpful, it's just "because". So unless the beholder "pre-fatigues" you with his eye, and it's not even the case since the effect goes away when he looks in another direction...

I already posted about this upthread: that the reality distortion means that even when you push your hardest, you can't do better than your base level of performance. That's a sign of how hard it is to push against the reality distortion!

I'm sorry, but it all looks extremely artificial to me, wanting to push what is a purely technical effect into a fantasy world explanation and failing completely to engage my imagination. good for you if it works, but honestly your description of the fight in the long examples that you posted is extremely technical. It's technical power after technical power.

If you want to look at the summaries of our campaign, the fights are important but the description is much less technical. In the following sequence (apologies, it's an automated translation of french to english), there were 3 fights, and you can see that they were much less technical and much more about the story, I'm not even sure that you will see the fights.

Assault at Maximus
The subterfuge
One of the thugs gives in to Alkaia's threats, and agrees to take us to Maximus' house with Grothia as a false prisoner. We arrive at Maximus' villa, and send for the steward, who is the one who usually concludes the transactions. While one of the guards is away, we knock out the other guard and Nicholas takes his cloak and tunic. When the steward returns, we grab him and drag him into the stable.

At first, he refuses to speak when Aetherna accuses him of trading in slaves. But he gets scared when Grothia tells him that he's helping Maximus override the right Sydon gave him, by forcing the Minotaurs to swear improper oaths. He tells us that Maximus keeps his archives in the basement, but the villa is full of guards. We decide to continue anyway, and enter the villa.

We arrive in what must be the auction room, and three or four guards watch us enter. Nicholas reassures them, and we go down the stairs. Once downstairs, getting rid of the two guards is a snap, and they find themselves in the jail instead of their prisoners, two minotaurs who have yet to swear service to Maximus.

From there, finding Maximus' office is easy, and we recover compromising documents: letters from Norbragon that demonstrate their nefarious plan to go capture minotaurs in the surrounding villages, and maintain the slave trade. There are also the terms of the catastrophic oaths which have been imposed on prisoners, and which are so general that, paradoxically, there is little chance of escaping them. The basement also houses a dormitory for guards and prisoners who have already sworn the oath: ten minotaurs and a satyr (?). Not knowing how they will react to their oath, we leave them there.

Taking advantage of the element of surprise, we leave the villa with the precious documents, the steward and the two prisoners.

This took us about a third to half of a session, with three short fights, one fairly brutal against guards and a running fight to get out, two of which were Theater of the Mind. The very short nature of the fights and the fact that 5e is so streamlined there allowed us to advance the intrigue a lot. And we went on with the trial, and my requisitory at the trial:

[To the assistance and to the Jurors]
Contemplate Maximus, this once noble man to the point of having gained the trust of Sydon himself to offer our dazzling city the possibility of making the criminals useful, of offering them a chance of redemption by allowing their oath of service to be used. at best by those who need it most. Contemplate his downfall and the depth of betrayal into which his greed has drawn him. Contemplate the heinous crimes of which he was the author, the citizens and travelers enslaved in defiance of the most sacred laws of our city, and sometimes massacred and sacrificed on the altar of his avarice.

We have all the evidence and all the witnesses to show that Maximus forced innocent people to take oaths of service to serve him. Of course, we do not question the generosity and wisdom of Sydon who then granted him the right to trade in these oaths. But we will endeavor to show that, on the contrary, the fact of trading in oaths extorted by force, by torture, from innocent people, is not only an insult to all the gods by corrupting the very principle of this oath, but an insult to Sydon himself, a betrayal of the sacred office of which Maximus was in charge.

[To Maximus]
Sydon himself calls you to account, Maximus, for the iniquitous way in which you have hijacked the sacred charge he had entrusted to you!

[To the assistance and to the Jurors]
At this stage, and in the face of the just sentences that we are going to demand against Maximus, it is clear that the perversions to which he devoted himself will push him, in his defense, if not to completely discard his betrayal, because the evidence is inescapable and relentless, at least trying to smear, tarnish other citizens of the city, even this procedure itself.

[To Maximus]
So I want to assure you, Maximus, that the charges are overwhelming. And that even if you succeed in casting doubts on certain proofs and the way in which they were obtained in the very cradle of your crimes, you will realize that they form only a very small part of the implacable bundle of the foundations of the charge.

Not only do we have many direct witnesses, from all sides, victims and perpetrators, now repentant, and among these some of your direct collaborators who have today realized how much your corruption has dragged them down themselves. in the depths of decay. Their testimonies are overwhelming, and they know every one of your vile secrets.

You could also point the finger at your business partners, those to whom you have, admittedly legally, but on corrupt bases, sold service oaths extorted by torture, attempting to implicate them in your crimes. But know that, on the contrary, and regardless of the evidence I have already spoken of, some, horrified by the revelations we have made to them about your perversion of the sacred charge of Sydon, have finally understood the hidden meaning of the boasting that you did about the way you got yourself so many oaths. And that (brandishing the letters received from Taran), this evidence, from your hand, is in itself far more damning than anything the prosecution has accumulated elsewhere.

You are alone today Maximus, because all those on whom you thought you could count understood how much it is you, and you alone, who was the receptacle of the confidence of Sydon, and who betrayed him, who them. have betrayed. And today they are ready to help you repair, as much as possible because we will not be able to redeem the deaths and the years of suffering. But they will only be able to help in this redemption if you do not try to make them dirty, if you show that you will not spit on these outstretched hands.

And therefore, to avoid such overflows, we implore you on the contrary, Maximus, to restraint, and to concentrate on your repentance and your penance. Charging other participants in crimes, implying that the procedure which charges you might have the slightest flaw would only serve to convince the jurors that you are not worthy of the redemption that we propose to you, because you would then show that you do not regret what is at the heart of your felony. So, instead of the clemency that we are offering you, it's about YOUR head, and YOUR blood, that we will have to talk about.

Listen, then, Maximus, and pay close attention to it, for this is your only chance for redemption, don't let it pass.

[To the assistance and to the Jurors]
First, and as a sentence before the gods, we obviously ask the clergy of Sydon to remove Maximus from the burden of selling the oaths of service. Moreover, as we will prove that it is this same office which corrupted a man once so noble, so trustworthy of Sydon himself, we ask the clergy not to renew this office, to prevent another soul noble is in turn corrupted. It should always be possible for parties who agree to cede oaths of service, but to trade in them, this is the source of vice, corruption, treason and forfeiture. I am sure that the clergy of Sydon, amazed like me, like all of us, by the depths of the baseness of Maximus' acts, will know how to make the right decision, one which will reassure all the citizens of our city that no man will ever again. will have the power to virtually enslave a free creature, and what is more by subjecting it to the cruelest tortures, and sometimes directly promising it to death.

Having done justice to Sydon for his wisdom and mercy, it is now to mortals that we must turn.

[To Maximus]
You are rich, Maximus, fat with the fruits of your corruption, and this wealth must serve to snatch from the torments of slavery those whom you have forced into it.

We are not of course talking about the real criminals, or those who have voluntarily taken an oath of service, but all those who have been forced to take this oath. It would not be fair that those who bought them from you, and this legally in the eyes of gods and men, be despoiled by your corruption. So as a sentence against mortals, we ask to immediately release from their oaths those who have been unjustly enslaved because of your schemes and who have not yet been sold. Then we will also ask that your entire wealth be confiscated by the city of Mytros and kept in reserve to compensate your buyers on the one hand, so that they can then, with their heads held high and without the slightest reservation, free them. victims of their oath of service, and on the other hand your victims, that they receive at least a fair salary and a fair compensation for their years of servitude, that they can thus resume their life as citizens with a future ahead of them. them. And, finally, compensation for the families of the victims, those who did not survive their enslavement.

And finally as a sentence in front of yourself and your future passage in the other world, Maximus… Well, this fortune, and these compensations, they will have to be administered. And even if, in all the veins of those you have plundered, Tisiphone boils down and demands revenge, the accusation will be satisfied on your part with an oath of begging and just reparation. Promise to live only on charity and to distribute your wealth as fairly as possible in the eyes of men and gods according to the principles that the prosecution has proposed above, and you will be able to administer it, without ever having to benefit yourself. And Sydon and the gods you have flouted by making a mockery of the sacred service oath, will be the keepers of your redemption and reparations to your victims. And may their curse befall you if you deviate an inch from this oath of service to Sydon, the Gods and our city of Mytros.

If you accept, we will not ask for your head, or even your banishment, because we want you to become the living symbol of the redemption offered by the generosity of Sydon, our good King Acastus, our Goddess and Queen Vallus, and of our eternal city of Mytros.

As you can see, Maximus, we are prepared to be more than lenient with the severity of your crimes, in the hope that your repentance will be deep, and just. But do not be deceived by our benevolence and our good humor, and do not take them for timidity. A righteous, terrible anger against your deeds beats in our chests, and especially the chests of all those whom you have imprisoned, tortured, reduced to virtual slavery and condemned not only to servitude but often to a terrible death. If you do not show repentance by fully accepting your sole and entire responsibility, if you persist in your errors to the point of wanting to deny the charge which is yours, to the point of wanting to charge the very innocent recipients of your transactions, to the point of to want to tarnish the benevolence of the heroes of the prophecy, to the point of wanting to flout Sydon even more, to the point of defying the most sacred edicts of Mitros, our good King Acastus and our queen the Goddess Vallus, then it is not not just your devotion to righting your wrongs which we will ask for. It is with your life that you will have to pay for your insolence, your arrogance, your total lack of repentance in front of the citizens, the heroes and the gods, and in particular Sydon. And if we have to go and seek justice to the furies, then our hatred for you and your acts will call on you Mégère, we will demand revenge from Tisiphone and you will see us as relentless as Alecto to claim your head, and your blood, to wash away the honor and justice of Sydon, of our king Acastus and of our Goddesses Vallus and Mytros.

So think carefully about your next words, Maximus, and in your defense, how will you plead? Repentance and reparations, or else… death!

You can find the trials result on the next page.

As you can see, we are interested in the story, supported by the game system, not at all by the pure technicalities of the game system.

 

[Lyxen]

Says who? I mean, other than you.

Says everyone with a bit of logic and understanding how body and mind works during and after effort. I don't eat the same thing when I'm running a marathon and recovering from it, for example. And people might incite me to sprint at the end, but I will collapse if it goes on for too long, and it will go the opposite way of my recovery, it will make me stronger for a short while but will make my recovery harder.

Note that I'm on purpose taking a purely physical exercise, because we are talking about martial powers, it's clear that magic can do whatever it wants.

Clearly not the 4e designers - and it was their game that I was playing!

The designers made a simpler choice in 4e (but to me a better one in 5e, clearly separating both). But it certainly means that the game formats the fantasy, whereas I prefer it the other way around.

The half-orc ability you describe - which, as I could said, could equally be given to a barbarian, a fighter or a paladin with no departure from th default fiction of any of those classes (in AD&D cavaliers and sohei both had variations on that ability) - could equally be spend a hit die rather than drop to 1 hp and it wouldn't change the fiction.

And then, I find it really sad that, instead of having abilities which are the signature of an archetype, it gets spread around, like people don't have enough imagination or liberty in the system to imagine something else. And the other classes do not need this in 5e, they indeed have their own ways of dealing with this, between the barbarian's rage, the fighter's second Wind, and the Paladin's Lay on Hands, all iconic and all fitting perfectly their archetype and their power source.

I don't think I've ever been rubbed up the wrong way by "player agency" (which I think means players playing the game and impacting the shared fiction). But I don't know why you're talking about "erasing player choices". A FitM approach to narrating forced movement doesn't erase anyone's choices - as @AbdulAlhazred already explained upthread, it's just deferring finalisation of the fiction until all the mechanical effects that contribute to it are resolved.

SInce you don't have a problem with it and it's a vast debate that goes way beyond this thread, I will drop the general subject of player agency.

I'm not 100% sure why it matters, but it's also not true that every instance of forced movement permits a defence. Just looking through the "D"s in Monster Vault, I found that the Savage Displacer Beast can push any enemy who misses with a melee attack, as a free action at will and no attack roll required (it's an effect). The Displacer Beast Pack Lord has a limited use attack called Clear the Path which slides on a hit (3 squares) or miss (1 square). The Doppelganger Infiltrator has an ability called Perfect Replica, which is an effect with no attack roll required and that immobilises its target; and it has an at-will opportunity action Replica Switch which permits it to swap places with an enemy affected by Perfect Replica if they are adjacent and a third party makes a melee or ranged attack against it.

And for me, this is bad game design, having abilities which have an automatic effect without any defense, especially a bad effect like this, which means that whatever you do to target, you will choose wrong, and this works on anyone in the world ? There is no justification for this, whether in terms of game design or in terms of player fun, it's only a technical gamemaster's tool to punish the player without giving them any chance. Bad design.

And a couple of final points about forced movement: in the fiction, Horrific Visage is nothing like Thunderwave. The latter is a blast of energy. The former is what it says on the tin: a horrific visage. The reason the character moves is because they recoil in horror (it's a fear effect). I can imagine contexts in which the most apposite narration would be not that the character recoiled at all, but that they never approached - eg if the ability was used as an immediate reaction after having been readied in response to a character moving towards the Wight.

Only it does not work that way, it also does damage (and again, why) ? And it also affects a zone, so why would that character be affected that way ? And what about remaining movement for the character ? Honestly, I find it significant that you play an edition which is so formal about rules and movement and constraints and, in the end, ignore the way it is structured because it gets in the way of your narration, others example below. You ignore the 4e rules like dying or movement or triggers or effects when it suits you (which is fine) but at the same time you have a very technical game (see the examples where the number of squares are justified to a great level of detail).

It's good that you find your fun that way, but for me it's much easier to be freeform (if it's what you are looking for) in a game that is much less formal to start with, that's all.

That wouldn't negate any player agency.

It sort of does, what happens to his choices of movement ? before and after the effect, for example ?

Another, similar example: an Elder Green Dragon has an ability called Luring Glare which slides a target that is hit with an attack against Will; and it has an at-will immediate reaction, Cunning Glance, triggered by an enemy shifting to a nearby square, which permits the use of Luring Glare against that enemy. It would be very natural to narrate the effect of Cunning Glance as the enemy never moving, or moving directly to where they end up, rather than first assuming that the character shifts and then that they move elsewhere.

You can describe it whatever way you like, but still it's another example of pure technical design. Why is this triggered by someone specifically shifting ? And not simply moving ? And why does a charm just move a target ? It's all bizarre and technical and justified backward from the technicalities of a power invented to technically surprise someone.

Here is the actual play report:
I regard this as perfectly representative of how 4e plays. Of course at lower tiers the fiction was different - at Heroic there were boats and Goblin warrens and tombs; at Paragon there were hobgoblin phalanxes and Underdark caverns; at Epic the PCs fought demons and destroyed Torog's Soul Abattoir, as well as assaulting the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

Oh my god, it is so technical. But still with you ignoring rules when you feel like it. As mentioned above, I have found that playing freeform and story-oriented works better with a lighter more free-form game, but it seems that it's not only that, you also enjoy extremely tactical gaming, while at the same time your players seem to roll in with arbitrary decisions by the DM.

I ran a very large number of skill challenges in which the Arcana skill figured, and magical effects were dealt with. The character of those effects as magical was a matter of fiction. Not a mechanical concept. (Almost no non-PC-generated effect has a power source; rituals do not have power sources; and in any event power source is a keyword and so its presence in the rule you quote is redundant. In our game we focused on the fiction.)



So one possibility is that you played the game correctly - ie having a bad time - and I mis-played the game - and had a good time. Another is that you misunderstood the game, and as a result had a bad time, and I worked out how the game is meant to be played, and had a good time. Which you think is up to you. I know which I think.

No, I'm sorry, but multiple examples show that, technically, you player the game incorrectly. However, practically, you played the game right, because you were having fun. As for ourselves, we tried to play the game as designed, so technically we were right, and simply did not have as much fun with it as we had with other editions, and, frankly, 4e is not suited to modifications on the fly, if you start unraveling a principle, you end up with more questions than where you started. But it's good if your players and yourself have an agreement about this.

But I still disagree that this is the way the game is meant to be played. AFAIK, there's no section about simple ad hoc rulings, it's all about the formal rules from beginning to end, and designing house rules is extremely formal, and it even challenges you about why you want to make the change to the core rules. And it needs to be written down. It is the most formal edition of the game ever.

How to be a Dungeon Masters starts with "A competitive sport has referees. It needs them. Someone impartial involved in the game needs to make sure everyone’s playing by the rules." That section is all about the rules. Compare to 5e: "A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of a campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other
players' characters (the adventurers) to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them."

The role of referee comes last, and it's all about interpretation, deciding to abide and change them. Totally different philosophies here (and again, I'm not judging the quality of that, just the intended design and what it means for the types of game best suited to an edition).

 

[Garthanos]

And even you shrug when trying to explain it, so imagine me shrugging even more in despair when trying to fond an explanation that matches the way I envision my fantasy worlds.

Explanation works completely for both martial and caster activities involve either conscious or subconscious complexity. But I do not have a preconceived requirement that the ability be "anti-magic"

 

[Lyxen]

Explanation works completely for both martial and caster activities involve either conscious or subconscious complexity.

Saying it does not make it true. Oh yes, it's very much in the fiction to say "the beholder looks at you and it blocks you consciously and subconsciously..."

Come on, 4e is great on some levels, but I'm sorry, narratively, here, it fails compared to the elegant simplicity of anti-magic in a magical world because, yes, this is frightening and terrible and unique in D&D.

But I do not have a preconceived requirement that the ability be "anti-magic"

Once more, anti-magic is a concept of the fantasy genre (and a fairly common one at that), so:

1. I find it an advantage when my ruleset support it properly so that I can emulate the genre.
2. The Beholder is really one of the most iconic monsters of D&D, so doing it proper justice is an advantage to me.
3. The 4e explanation for the beholder eye does not even match the internal logic of the game itself, it is purely technical based on a technical construction of the game, and it requires jumping through hoops to tell a story about it.

Also, by the way, the 4e MM beholder does not have such an ability, it just dazes the target. Not extremely frightening to me. As for the updated monster vault, it's not even an eye looking at you, it's just a blast attack that does some weird thing. Purele mechanistic.