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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wrecan" data-source="post: 5627474" data-attributes="member: 64825">You don't understand why someone under the pressure of combat can't do things they'd be able to do when the lives of they or their allies are not being actively threatened?  I guess then, that we have to agree to disagree.  I don't understand how anybody could not be capable of understanding this.The DM and players can always ignore the rules.  I have no idea what your point is on this score.  What?  If the DM wants to use page 42 to let you improvise an action in combat that mimics the events that your character can produce out of combat, he certainly can.  I'd like page 42 to more robustly explain how to improvise actions that impose conditions.  In fact, there's even a recent <a href="http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4tut/terrainpowers" target="_blank">online article on the Wizards' website</a> that offers advice on that.  I wonder who wrote that... oh yes, I did.Is that what you wanted?  A way to improvise non damaging effects in combat so your hypnotist can try to dominate people in combat as an at-will power?At this point, your problem isn't disassociation, but that you can come up with character concepts that don't have sufficient support to meet your needs.  You're trying to couch this problem in the nomenclature we've been using to discuss disassociation, but the problem isn't disassociation.  What's the big deal with this?  Each action causes the creature to have to concentrate on the most recent threat.  I see nothing remotely problematic with it.No, I see everything in combat as disassociation because combat rules are never precisely simulative.  All combat is necessarily abstract based on the mechanics I've described numerous times that have existed in all editions of the game (initiative, attack rolls, hit points, defenses/saves).That's it!  Now you've got it.  There's nothing inherently game-breaking about disassociative mechanics.  It's all a matter of preference.  You don't like marking (I presume, based on your example).  You have a problem enjoying combat where that's a factor.  I see absolutely nothing problematic about it.  You don't appear to have a problem with sequential initiative, non-simultaneous actions, a lack of dismemberment mechanics, or all of the other things that emphasize that combat is always an exercise in disassociated roleplaying.  That's not an objective truth -- it's just aesthetics.Precisely this.  Yesway's example has a house-ruled Hypnotism ability that he specifically did not house-rule to be used in combat and then he complains that the ability doesn't work in combat.  But that's because of the house-rule that he built with that inconsistency!You house-rule a power with an inconsistency and then complain about the inconsistency.  Don't try to blame the people on the other side of the discussion because of your flawed hypothetical.  If you and your DM are going to house-rule it, then do so, boldly.  Don't do it half-assed and then complain that people might object to the whole ass.What about people like me who grok the idea of disassociated mechanics and don't take issue.  What about people who take issue with disassociated mechanics and have a "blind spot" for the disassociated mechanics they don't even realize they've accepted for years?I agree with pemerton.  You may have intended this phrase to be conciliatory, but man, is it insulting!  I think any explanation necessarily limits narrative opportunities.  I do think it unnecessarily limits people who want to play nonmagical heroes.  (Unnecessary because, unlike others, I have no issues with martial daily powers.) I would have no issues re-skinning or ignoring it.Adjusting the plot to meet the mechanics is a necessary consequence of D&D combat in all editions because all D&D combat has a level of disassociation.  Those people who were put off by the disassociation required in prior editions have already left the hobby.</blockquote>

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