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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 4548136" data-attributes="member: 18549">How about this:The design of 4th edition is such that it divides up narrative control between the players and the DM in a way similar to some recent independent RPGs.  Specifically, it allows the player to declare that circumstances are right for the use of a complicated manoeuvre; for example, an enemy is momentarily distracted by another opponent, or falls for a feint, or holds his shield in a way that interferes with his attack, etc.  This allows 4e to include events in the game that occur beneath the level of abstraction allowed by the previous edition's rules.  While we have always assumed that combat involved a lot of feints, dodges, and clever manoeuvres, the mechanical system has always boiled down to "*roll* I hit, for *roll* 10 damage."  The cool minutiae of combat are ignored because they're too fiddly to devote any energy to.  If we had tried to do so, a combat round would take half an hour to play through because of all the dodging and blocking and whatnot.  Feats were able to add a bit of complexity, particularly Tactical Feats.  However, they generally relied on triggering conditions that may or may not ever occur, which meant that what should have been a cool addition to a player's tactical repertoire ended up being so much wasted space.4e addresses this problem by allowing players a certain number of tokens that they may play in order to grab narrative control every so often.  The control they gain is extremely limited, and is generally restricted to the purpose of making combat look and feel awesome.  By designing the game in this way, it allows powers to specifically emulate the kinds of cool, rich details that combat consists of, and pulls us away from the "I miss/I hit" days of yore.  You can now literally sit down to watch 300 and make notes for new martial powers based on cool things the Spartans do, then implement them in under 10 minutes.  All for the price of allowing the player to say "the orc is standing with his leg exposed under his shield, so I kneecap him," once or twice per session.Now then, I really don't think you're interested in hearing any of this, but I thought I'd throw it out there because this is, as far as I'm concerned, the biggest innovation that 4e has brought to the table.  Forget balancing classes, forget ditching the christmas tree effect, forget the end of the 15 minute adventuring day.  Being able to do awesome things, because you are given narrative control within particular boundaries, is the thing that got me playing 4e.Also, that thing you mention with Transmute Mud to Rock?  That's an exploit.  The DM is there to prevent abuses like that, not to encourage them.  I really don't see what's fun about effortlessly killing yet another group of enemies because you figured out a loophole in the system that your DM is too wimpy to overrule.</blockquote>

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