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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6112696" data-attributes="member: 42582">No. None of those things is within the system's framework. There isn't any such thing as fire that deals normal damage (hence the role of a flaming sword). Or electricity that doesn't deal Lighting damage. Or a conjuration that lacks the Conjuration keyword. (You can even see the errata reflecting this - eg errataing Icy Terrain as a Zone, which they got wrong in the PHB.)Tide of Iron is particularly constrained, because whatever the narration is it ought to involve your shield, given that wielding a shield is a prerequisite for using the power.What page of the rules are you referring to here? The only relevant in the DMG occurs in its discussion of attacking objects (p ), which states:Some unusual materials might be particularly resistant to some or all kinds of damage. In addition, you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it.This implies the exact opposite of what you are asserting.There is more discussion in the PHB (p 55):[O]ther keywords define the fundamental effects of a power . . . Charm: Mental effects that control or influence the subject’s actions. Conjuration: Powers that create objects or creatures of magical energy. Fear: Effects that inspire fright. . . Illusion: Powers that deceive the senses or the mind. . . Polymorph: Effects that alter a creature’s physical form. . . Sleep: Powers that cause sleep or unconsciousness.That is all about fictional positioning, and the effect of the mechanics on the story - a person hit by a Fear effect is frightened, a Conjuration effect conjures things, etc. If I have a Fear power that induces forced movement, I can't narrate it as working instead by conjuring faeries to carry the target away inless I change the keyword, from Fear to (say) Conjuration.I'm not sure what you mean - that is, PCs sometimes make chasms, whether by strength or magic, and hence players can sometimes have the power to make the presence of a cavern part of the shared fiction - but anyway that doesn't strike me as relevant. If - whether via exercise of GM or player authority - it has been established in the fiction that character X is adjacent to a 20' deep chasm, and I have my PC hit X with Tide of Iron, then the fiction is very clearly affecting the resolution: someone (the GM, if X is an NPC) has to roll a saving throw for X, and if X fails then down s/he goes, taking 2d10 damage in the process.I'm not sure how you reconcile that with your claim that "the story is completely superfluous to the mechanics". To me it seems like a counterexample. As is the discussion of the vulnerability of gauze and paper to Fire damage. (The keyword constraints on narration of flavour work in the other direction - they are instances of the mechanics directly if not completely shaping the content of the fiction.)You, or yours, mightn't. Mine do all the time: based on the keywords of their powers, and the broader fictional positioning of their PCs, they do things like use forced movement powers to impale beholders on stalactites, or use Thunderwave to blast open a rickety wall or shatter a statute, or spill oil on the ground to increase the distance they can slide an enemy with a polearm.I don't doubt you're describing your experience. I'm questioning your treatment of your experience as a property of the game, particularly when in fact the relevant rules text - quoted above - speaks in terms directly contradictory to how you (or your GMs) are running the game.To put it another way, if you run the game in such a way as fictional positioning doesn't matter, then of course you'll get that result. (My guess would be you also won't get much p 42 action, but that's a conjecture, not a proven result.) But the text never makes any such assertion, and in the relevant pages in fact points srongly in the other direction.I did, in the post directly above the one you replied to.I didn't say anything about jerks. I talked about GM adjudication. I'm sure   [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] is a nice guy. But I don't want to play a game in which he decides if my plan works or not. I want to shape my own fate! In fact, I know from his posts that Balesir, as a GM, wants the same thing! And so do I! I don't want to decide if the players' plans work or not. I want them to go all out while I go all out with the NPCs and other antagonistic story elements, and let the mechanics tell us who prevails.So we've got to the point where D&Dnext will cater to all playstlyes, except for the ones it doesn't?I mean, I could just sit back and let the GM narrate the whole story for me - perhaps dropping in my guy's tagline here or there to liven it up - but at that point I'd rather read a book or watch a movie. I don't play RPGs to enjoy the GM's amateur novel or screenplay, and I don't GM to share my amateur fiction with my players. Genuine, rich, joint creation of the shared fiction is pretty important to me. That needs rules that will mediate everyone's efforts at contribution, and that will be robust enough to do that even when what I'm trying to contribute is "The demons just wiped the floor with you and went on to destory your friends and family too" and what the players are trying to contribute it "On the contrary, we banished them back to the Abyss in the name of Erathis and the Raven Queen."There are actualy existing RPGs that provide such rules. And at least one edition of D&D is among them! If D&Dnext is going to be an umbrella for all D&D play, then, it has to offer the same thing.</blockquote>

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