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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wyrmshadows" data-source="post: 3966403" data-attributes="member: 56166">Magical weapons provide the suspension of disbelief required to allow for a sword to cleave into a stone golem. In fantasy fiction enchanted blades are described as supremely sharp and capable of cutting into damn near anything. Its not the skill of the wielder that makes a sword cut through stone, it is the wielders skill combined with the enchanted nature of the weapon.All good fantasy has the quality of internal consistancy with a nod to the believable within the context of the millieu. Humans have two arms and two legs, the world revolves around the sun, green plants need water and sun to survive, animals eat other animals to stay alive, etc. In other words a baseline realism that allows for the suspension of disbelief required for immersion in the game. Some of this "reality" can be altered due to magic but there is the key, the internal consistancy is maintained by invoking that which can supercede the normal laws of reality ie. magic.There is nothing inherently magical about a rogue's sneak attack that would allow him to score more damage than a warrior striking the same golem, elemental, ooze, etc. The decision to allow rogues to sneak attack everything is nothing more than another indicator that D&D, though never known for its intense realism, is becoming a game that is more and more a Medieval Supers Boardgame of Tactical Combat (tm) where unless everyone gets to be badass all the time, the game is unfun.I think this philosophy is designed to take the sting out of the consequences of choices a player makes in regards to his or her character. IMO this is an attempt to allow those who were weaned on videogames to play D&D and feel that there are no real consequences to their in game choices. In a videogame you can always start again at the last checkpoint/save point and things like versimilitude mean absolutely nothing. Does anyone really look for versimilitude when the play WoW? I have never seen anyone raise such a concern.I was very enthusiastic about 4e and still like a lot of what I have seen. However, I am having grave doubts about some of the design philosophy behind the game that makes it seem that versimilitude is worthless and ruins everyone's fun. For 22yrs as a DM versimilitude added to the depth of the game and though there were chellenges that come PCs couldn't overcome merely with wicked cool powers, and they were forced to think outside the box, ultimately the campaigns seemed real and were a great deal of fun for all involved. I still remember a situation in my 2e campaign when the party encountered a dragon who, with their resources too low to overcome it with sheer might, they were able to escape by collapsing the mouth of the cavern. Collapsing the cavern trapped the creature long enough to make a hasty retreat. Two of my friends still talk about that encounter and how powerless they were against the creature and of their pride in ultimately surviving the battle by using their wits. This is IMO a lot of what the adventure of D&D is supposed to be about. Of course that encounter required on-the-fly adjudication on my part but IMO ultimately everything possible cannot and should not be covered in some rule. The DM is more than just a rule arbitrating CPU whose sole function is to interpret RAW though YMMV.Wyrmshadows</blockquote>

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