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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6578194" data-attributes="member: 996">What's the difference in the narrative before you swing and hit for 1 hp of damage vs hitting for 8?  The difference flows from the mechanic, not the narrative.  You're using the premise that mechanics must flow from narrative as if it were some sort of unquestionable axiom.  It's not.  Many game mechanics inevitably flow the other way. First of all, narrative often has to flow from mechanical resolution - you can't narrate that you hit until after the mechanic has been resolved.  So right off the bat, you can't have what you say you want.  I'm guessing that's an issue with expressing what you want. So I can stab or blast someone for 8 points, but if I hit them for 7,  it has to be something else?  That doesn't sound like a useful rule of thumb, let alone an absolute of game design.I also don't see how, for instance, it applies to the issue you ran into with Spiteful Glamour, nor with re-skinning in general.  If different narratives can lead to the same result, then re-skinning a mechanic with a different narrative is no problem.It'd be strange to see so isolated a mechanic in any version of D&D - certainly, no 4e power is entirely without it's little italic description, however inadequate you may find it personally.  Even a system like Hero, which presents generically-labeled mechanical effects that you buy, mod, limit, and build into the powers you want includes (typically begins the build process with) defining the 'special effect' - what we're calling the narrative description of the effect.</blockquote>

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