You'll revel in it? Ok. I'm not really sure how you would like me to be as clear as possible and polite as possible and relay that I think that you're effort here is in good faith but that its misunderstood by way of not having considerable experience with the ruleset; I could put a smily afterward? (but that may seem condescending and intentionally provocative when juxtaposed with the antecedent commentary, rather than sincere...I have no idea...its impossible to discern how one person may interpret language when they can't see your face versus another...so I just try to be as clear as possible with my language and put the ball in their court). People misunderstand things all the time. I misunderstand things plenty. Sort of like I did earlier and I owned it without hesitation or any loss of sense of self-worth. Nor does it affect me toward the end of gaining any sense of self-worth when I'm right about something. Its pretty trivial. We're human. It happens. And the world doesn't blink (tragedy continues in every corner of the world while we mull over useless game theory and rules adjudication). I wasn't being a jerk or slighting you or anything of the sort. We happen to sit on different sides of the fence of an issue, but so be it. I'm not sure what would be cause for revelling. But on we go I suppose:
Um.... sorry if that offended you. I didn't mean to, and I really don't feel bad when people make judgments about me. I didn't think you were being rude, either. The "revel in it" bit from me was because the irony of it all strikes me in such a way that I get great pleasure from it. I don't, however, think less of you in any way (not that it'd effect your self-worth, nor should it). I do want civil conversation, and I am happy to talk about this while disagreeing.
The "revel" thing
seems (I stress that word) to have struck a nerve, perhaps, so I'll let it go, though. I meant no offense.
I think the term fiat here might be constrained into borderline meaninglessness if this is the case. Fiat is a decree made from authority.
Right, and the player is only getting the mechanical authority through the GM. This is unlike powers / basic attacks / etc. I snipped your analogies because (as if often the case with them) I didn't think they were spot on. It'd be like saying computers have "fiat" when they ask you for permission, and can't continue without it. It knows what it wants to do, but without your permission, it can't do it. That's essentially what happens in this scenario (again, unlike powers, basic attacks, etc.).
The player says I want to slide this guy into the boiling stewpot hanging on the spit over the firepit for ongoing fire damage...and knock the whole thing down and make a mess of it for permanent difficult terrain and a fire zone (well, in terms of the encounter...as soon as its cleaned up, its not there anymore); this is why its "limited use damage expression" rather than "normal use"
This is brand new information to me. None of this "and permanently change the terrain, making a repeat action impossible" has been explicitly mentioned before, I don't think. If that's the case, it would certainly be "Limited" over "Normal" damage. But, as I said, I don't think that had been mentioned until this point; the kick was to push him into the fire, and I did specifically ask about doing it over again. Though, I do see your hypothetical changed from "wrongfoot him into the fire" to "and the result of knocking into the stewpot and getting the boiling liquid", so I missed that. My fault (see, I can be wrong, and admit it!).
He asks to spend his level 7 encounter power to do it.
Again, I'm not sure this is accurate. I see how you interpreted it this way, but I don't think that's what the text implies, or what they meant, and I touched on why that was.
* Automatic and impossible to "interpret" any differently such that the word "interpretation" is a pretty liberal use of the word. Resolve and resolution would be more fitting. You can't reconstruct a functional shower drain-pan assembly from deconstructed parts any differently. You aren't "interpretting" the shower drain-pan from the deconstructed parts. You're resolving the reconstruction.
I gotta disagree. You said:
He frames it as forced movement through weapon flurries and wrongfooting him - Dex vs Ref; Fire, Martial, Weapon keywords.
This is directed interpreted by you, as the GM. You decided that "wrongfooting him" was based on Reflex (outmaneuvering him) rather than Will (tricking him). You added the keywords (is Weapon always necessary? is Martial?). This is direct interpretation from you as GM. As I said above, this is "the player says what he wants, GM consults guidelines, GM interprets player action via guidelines, GM tells player how it plays out."
He basically wanted to do this level 8 limited use hazard effect but sub melee range, single target, slide 2 for AoE effect:
Standard Action Close blast 3
Targets All creatures in blast
Attack: +11 vs. Reflex
Hit: 3d8 + 4 fire damage and ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).
Yep. And you set that up for him. Which is awesome; page 42 is good, in my opinion, for the type of game I see 4e being. But it most certainly is not player fiat. It relies on "the player says what he wants, GM consults guidelines, GM interprets player action via guidelines, GM tells player how it plays out." That's "mother may I" in a nutshell, in my book (though admittedly sometimes there's no guidelines).
If the collection of that is not player fiat, then there can exist no such thing with improvised attacks (due to their very nature, they require some level of mechanical mapping) while a GM exists within the game construct; no matter how clear the apparatus/recipe is for resolution of the reconstruction from parts.
No, they can. The player can go through the system himself, and certain terrain aspects are labeled as one-shot only (or the player decides they are). If the player (not you, as GM) said "I'm going to do [everything we talked about, including changing the terrain] since these stunt guidelines say I can" and the rules support that, then you
absolutely have a player fiat-based "improvised attacks" system. The GM doesn't get a say; the player has control. And
that is the essence of player fiat. As always, play what you like
I can handle that and use whatever terms are dictated by the collective. Me saying NU-UH all day long doesn't mean much when everyone else can put a term to good use with a shared, common understanding.
