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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 4382530" data-attributes="member: 66434">Game mechanics that can be perceived by an inhabitant of the fantasy world can and will be noticed by a character unless the player just agrees to handwave and turn a blind eye. A reasonable person will notice the difference between the actual effectiveness of using a power and a the lack of effect for using a fluff filler and calling it the same thing. As long as the players in a game generally know when they score a hit and when they miss, these effects become obvious.  In the disarm example, the fighter will know that his opponent actually loses combat effectiveness ( hp damage) from his power and be equally aware when his opponent drops his weapon but is otherwise unaffected. A character who does not notice this is very unaware. ( And the dumb as rocks fighter is a classic) For sharper characters this makes no sense.  If narration truly ruled over mechanics then a character could just claim to be the greatest swordsman ever and refuse to accept hp damage because he is "just that good". That doesn't work.  What 4E does is lay down the law on the combat board and leaves players to clean up thier own inconsistency mess with a handwavy "whatever works".  As long as combat is reasonably balanced I can live with this for a beer and pretzels combat session but as system for playing a character who is actually part of a world It fails to impress me.</blockquote>