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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7762530" data-attributes="member: 42582">I know you'll be shocked that I've been moved by your post to reply . . .I strongly disagree with the claim that 4e's combat rules don't rely on feeding into a fictional state, or at least that they differ from any other version of D&D in this respect.The core rules - roll to hit, roll damage, manage a hit point total - are no different from any other version of D&D, and none of these systems depend upon the fiction nor yield any fiction (until we get to the final blow). In <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/427" target="_blank">Vincent Baker's terms</a>, they are all "boxes to boxes". Baker suggests that a successful hit roll generates leftward-pointing arrows (ie generates some fiction - "you hit me!") but that's been very hazy in D&D at least since Gygax's DMG; in 4e this is often less hazy because the conditions inflicted suggest clearer fiction than an abstract "you hit me".The movement rules in 4e are - in the relationship between fiction and mechanics - no different from 3E. (They are different from AD&D, which doesn't use a mechanical system - real or notional squares - for establishing position, and relies more heavily on unmediated fiction.)In all versions of D&D, the most significant way in which fiction feeds into combat resolution (ie rightward-pointing arrows) is in the form of terrain and positioning. I'm behind a wall so am harder to hit. I'm under a tree and so have cover from the griffon. Oops! I just stepped over the edge of a cliff and so am falling. I want to melt that ice slick and so I blast it with a firebolt or apply a torch to it. 4e is no different in these respects to any other version of D&D, except that in some cases it uses keywords to facilitate these mechanics-fiction connections (eg if my ability has the fire keyword it's the sort of ability that can be used to melt an ice slick).I know - from various posts over the years on ENworld - that there are some 4e tables which take the view that a fireball can't melt an ice slick or set a tree alight. And that a tree can't provide cover against a griffon (attacking from above) any different from the cover it may or may not provide against a monkey attacking you from within it. My view is that those tables (i) are ignoring the 4e rules, especially the rules on keywords (in the PHB) and the rules on affecting objects (in the DMG), and (ii) are playing a skirmish game, or at least a skirmish sub-game within a larger RPG chassis. I don't think that 4e would be unique in this respect either - I would expect that such tables may well have played 3E and may well play 5e much the same way. For instance, I've seen it argued on these boards that a fireball spell in 5e can't set fire to a scroll a character is holding - that's an absence of arrows between boxes and clouds!</blockquote>

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