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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 5755490" data-attributes="member: 23240">Interpreting 4e mechanics as "process simulation" is doomed to failure. From this perspective, it definitely does not work. I think it's obvious to everybody here.The point is, that is not what 4e mechanics does. It is the first edition of D&D with reasonably consistent design assumptions and goals - and it was never designed as simulation. It's not a good hammer, not because it is poorly made, but because it is a reasonably good screwdriver.Powers work on metagame level. They represent story elements, not setting elements. When a player uses a power, they are requesting something to happen in fiction, they are extending their narrative rights; it's very different from the character doing something to this effect. In many cases, a character does not anything special when a power is invoked - it's how others react and how circumstances change. Using mechanics as a way of deciding outcomes and narrating events to make sense within it is not patching a nonfunctional system; it's playing the game as designed.One more thing of note: the magical/mundane split you seem to request is mutually exclusive with class balance many people want from D&D. Being able to override physics, psychology and other notions of "realism" is by definition more powerful than not being able to do it. So, when aiming for balance, one has to either give magic to everyone, remove everything "magical" from magic or move from simulation mechanics to metagame, narrative mechanics. 4e is far from perfect, but the choice it made here is the most sensible one.</blockquote>

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