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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5907359" data-attributes="member: 52073">I disagree.  Which feats are more abstract or less noticeable than spells?  Power Attack?  Combat Expertise?  If fighting defensively and full defense are noticeable in-game (and at the very least they can be, since I've always seen them described as such), then another trade-accuracy-for-benefits combat stance probably is.  Improved Disarm?  Improved Grapple?  Well, you notice their effects as much as you do BAB's effects, but that doesn't make either the feats or BAB particularly gamist.  If those are "unreal, gamist mechanics" then so are bless, divine favor, and other purely-numerical spells...but I'm fairly sure we can agree that purely-numerical spells like those (and by extension similar feats) can work within the game world just fine.Likewise with sneak attack.  If a rogue shivs you in the kidney, you might not be able to pick out how many sneak attack dice he has, any more than you could necessarily pick out the number of dice a fireball has, but you can definitely tell that he's one of those people who can put their victims in a world of hurt if they get the drop on their victims or force their victims to split their attention.Just because there's no Martial Knowledge skill that lets you identify feats and such like Spellcraft can for spells (though perhaps there should be) doesn't mean the martial types are less grounded in the world.  If you see someone cast a fireball, you don't know whether they're a wizard, sorcerer, wu jen, shugenja, warmage, or something else until you see them break out a spellbook or the like, but you know that they're an arcane caster and that you can investigate further to find out exactly how they work magic.  Likewise, if you see someone leap out of the shadows and kill someone in a single lethal hit to the vitals, you don't know whether they're a rogue, scout, ninja, spellthief, or something else until you see them turn invisible or the like, but you know that they're a nonmagical specialist and that you can investigate further to find out exactly what they can do.  Granted, a critical hit or ToB maneuver could also involve a hit to the vitals so you're not guaranteed a one-to-one flavor-to-mechanics correspondence all the time, but then there are lots of ways to shoot cones of flame at people too, so again magic and the mundane are on even footing.You don't automatically go from "Hey guys, I think I can figure out what that guy can do in combat!" to "Hey guys, I just discovered that I'm a character in an RPG who has 86 HP, BAB +10, and a bunch of feats!"  As with any abstract mechanics, there's a spectrum from trying to simulate things on the one end, to going purely for mechanics on the other end, to aligning with reality but abstracting everything away somewhere in the middle, and plenty of stuff in between those poles.  AD&D/3e martial types still definitely fall on the "trying to fit into the world" end of things, and even if you personally don't want to treat all the rules as laws of physics the rules are internally-consistent and detailed enough (which, granted, isn't all that detailed) that you can do it that way, given appropriate fantasy/mythological assumptions.</blockquote>

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