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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragoslav" data-source="post: 6152286" data-attributes="member: 6690267">I don't know which mechanics you're considering "video gamey," but if it's things like the 4e Fighter's marking ability, I don't see why that has to be any more video gamey than your basic attack. The player is under no imperative to describe his character's attack--he can just say, "I attack. 26 vs. AC. I attack. 15 vs. AC. I attack..." Which is remarkably similar to auto-attacking in an MMORPG. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Part of the problem is that Wizards don't have to "describe their actions." The DM says that there is a mountain in the PCs' path, so the Wizard says, "I cast Fly and fly over it," while the Fighter player says, "I'm going to climb the mountain," at which point the DM begins subjecting him to an arbitrary amount of skill checks, each one making it increasingly likely that the PC will fail, while the Wizard just pressed the "I Win" button.Incidentally, I don't see why "I don't want my Fighter to be constantly overshadowed by the Wizard" = munchkinism.Not all of us want to have to spend time and creative energy trying to rein in the power of magic-using PCs. Me, personally, I think declaring that Wizards' class features don't work except under precise conditions of my choosing is a very ham-fisted approach to reining in their power level.Whether you consider spells or skills (part of) a character's ability to interact with the gameworld, that's what they are. What else do you call a Wizard's utility spells like Charm or Knock? Or skills like Climb, Diplomacy, Bluff, Perception...?If this turns out to be an edition issue, then all anyone can really say is that, in later editions, skills are an important part of the game, whereas in earlier editions, they weren't. D&D Next will cover both of those styles.If you could give one or two examples, that would help the rest of us understand what your idea of "narrative control" is.I'm not necessarily a proponent of such mechanics, but I think calling them "anti-imagination" is unfairly harsh. If anything, they require more imagination, because simulationist mechanics that tell you exactly what happened are more cut-and-dry than mechanics that require you to come up with a post-facto explanation for what happened.I think a class feature that would work for giving Fighters more narrative control would be something like, "When attempting to climb, on a successful check, you no longer have to make any more checks to continue climbing, regardless of how high the obstacle is."It doesn't obviate the obstacle like just making it disappear would, but it makes it so that when you say, "I climb the mountain," you mean "I climb the mountain." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /></blockquote>

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