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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5570848" data-attributes="member: 82106">I guess my position is subtly different from Balesir's. I seem to recall this coming up once before too. I don't consider the game mechanics/rules to be DEFINING anything. They facilitate play. To the extent that they match the world you want to play in they are useful. When they fail to do that you can change them. If you really seriously just want snakes that never go prone, well that's the way it works at your table. There is never in 4e any statement that says "rules are inflexible and the fiction must conform." Quite the contrary, the SC rules state the opposite directly. In a number of other places it is made clear that the rules are both extensible and malleable.  My personal preference is to play with the rules as they are as much as it makes sense. I am using 4e because 4e's rules fairly well support the world I'm describing and presenting to the players. In the few cases where that fails to happen to the extent that it demands some adjustment then that's what will happen. Remember too, monsters can use page 42, or the DM can just give them extra powers (same difference really, what dragon wouldn't have a couple of terrain powers set up to work in its lair?). Things will work out, the fiction will be honored.Anyway, I certainly agree with Balesir that I can can't understand how Reaping Strike is 'decoupled from the fiction' but "I swing my sword (MBA)" isn't. If MBA is decoupled then so is any similar feature in any game that isn't so abstract that I can't isolate a specific point where I'm attacking at all. And again, really, isn't combat just one part of the game? Just because the non-combat rules are more abstract and take up less mass of verbiage and resources doesn't mean they are meant to be an unimportant part of the game. The combat scenes should all be firmly set in the context of the rest of the adventure, so when players are fighting, which they admittedly very often do, the players can be thinking about their character's motivations and proclivities from an in-game perspective, while also enjoying the ability to think tactically (as much as they want, many groups don't do a lot of it).</blockquote>

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