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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5620440" data-attributes="member: 21169">Quite a  few of the class powers in 3e simply state what the power does without giving an explanation of what is going on in the game world, of how the power is accomplished. It's particularly noticeable with the extraordinary abilities, which, being supernatural* but not magical would seem to require more explanation. Examples include: the barbarian's fast movement; the druid's animal companion, woodland stride, trackless step, venom immunity and timeless body; the monk's timeless body and tongue of the sun and moon; the ranger's woodland stride and hide in plain sight; the paladin's divine health; the rogue's special ability opportunist. This would seem to lay them open to the same objections The Alexandrian levels at the besieged foe power, of being open to multiple interpretations.I must admit though that most of the class powers do have accompanying flavor text. An example is the druid's wild empathy - "a druid can use body language, vocalizations, and demeanor to improve the attitude of the animal." I was surprised to discover that there is flavor text for a barbarian's damage reduction, a particularly supernatural power – he "gains the ability to shrug off some amount of injury from each blow or attack." Though whether that's sufficient to justify DR5/-, the same resistance to damage as a wooden door, is more open to question.In this case I was using abstract to mean a single rule which can stand for a wide variety of quite different game world properties. As pemerton described upthread, this is Gary's account of saving throws in the 1e DMG pg 80 -This protection takes a slightly different form for each class of character. Magic-users understand spells, even on an unconscious level, and are able to slightly tamper with one so as to render it ineffective. Fighters withstand them through sheer defiance, while clerics create a small island of faith. Thieves find they are able to avoid a spell's full effects by quickness . . .Hit points are similarly abstract, by the 1e DMG, in that one hit point can mean a unit of physical injury, or skill, or luck, or fatigue, or divine protection.You are quite right to say that all rules are abstract. It's a good point and something I'd not considered. As mentioned upthread, a roll to hit could reference a stab or a slash. But I think the level of abstraction involved in saving throws and hit points is far greater than this.It's relevant to The Alexandrian's argument because his difficulty with the besieged foe power appears to be the variety of possible game world interpretations it allows. This is where we get into difficulty in distinguishing between a dissociated mechanic and a highly abstract rule. I think they are the same thing, at least for this definition of dissociated mechanic.I think that 3e's extraordinary abilities have a lot to do with it. The Alexandrian's difficulty is not with magical powers, which as always get a free pass, but with non-magical martial powers such as Trick Strike, his first example of a dissociated mechanic. TA's problem with Trick Strike is that he cannot explain it in terms of the game world. But 3e is already full of non-magical martial powers. An extraordinary ability is a power that cannot work in our world. It is a power that *should* break our suspension of disbelief. Why then can Trick Strike not be an extraordinary ability? If we accept barbarians with skin as tough as wood and druids with immunity to poison and monks speaking with any living creature and rangers hiding in plain sight and a character with evasion avoiding all damage from a fireball. While he's asleep. And that all of these are non-magical, then why can we not accept Trick Strike?*EDIT: I should add that when I use the word supernatural I'm using it in its common English sense, and not as a D&D rule term. In 3e, supernatural abilities are always magical.</blockquote>

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