Elephant in the room: rogue and fighter dailies.
There couldn't have been too many complaints about it, since both that mechanic and daily barbarian powers survived the Pathfinder playtest feedback. The survival of those mechanics along with the survival of confirming rolls for criticals prove that Pathfinder fans and me are very different animals.
Equally absurd is your insistence that barbarians weren't a common class, or that daily powers for martial characters haven't been with us for a long time. Look, 4e took it to a degree greater than any other edition with the AEDU system, but let's not sanitize the past here. 4e is mostly a system that takes 3e to its logical conclusion rather than something as revolutionary as people think it is.
Now I'll agree that daily powers are poblematic, but they are generally problematic because when you fail, your moment of potential glory doesn't come up again for anywhere from a week to a month. So essentially there is a lot of build up, but potentially no payoff. The 3e paladin was the worst offender, as he waited to unleash his smite against powerful evil, failed more often than not because of the high defenses of the boss monster, and watched the fighter do the damage every round that he had to save his dailies for.
That's why Gygax knew what he was doing when he had magic spells work without an attack roll. Of course, he proved he didn't know what he was doing by allowing some of those spells to fail due to save or die. Often the monster succeeded and your killer spell just fizzled. King Evoker on the other hand, did 10d6-15d6 damage, which was usually a guaranteed kill for the monster anyway. With 3e's save for half damage it got a little better, but Evoker was still far and away the optimal wizard choice. After all, it isn't like a failed save in a save or die spell still took away half the creature's hp,
I think we can all agree that a fatigue mechanic would be better than daily martial powers. I think where we all disagree is whether daily martial powers are blasphemy, and when they are blasphemy.
I am all for abilities that meaningfully capture this idea, such as a legitimate fatigue mechanic, or action points, which represent that superhuman effort but have the virtue of not being time-limited resources and being optional for people who don't like them.
There are specific spells that can be unbalancing. Lots of them. This does not mean that "spells" are inherently unbalancing, or that the frequency of use is a balancing tool.
The issue with these kinds of spells is twofold. First, non-spellcasters should have similarly powerful abilities (i.e. disabling or killing someone with one roll), but the health system is too forgiving in this regard. Second, the spells have no real limits other than the daily restriction. Both are readily fixable, though I haven't exactly seen 5e nail it in this regard.
Yes, many epic heroes have had quasi-superpowers. You know what they didn't have? Occasions where they tried to use them, but couldn't because they had already done something similar that day. Those characters are so superhuman precisely because they never stop coming. In other words, I'm not just talking about the daily aspect being unrealistic, I'm talking about it being anti-dramatic and anti-fun.[/QUOTE]
Hussar
Legend
This is really an insolvable issue. The two sides are just not even speaking the same language.
As I understand it, those that dislike the Daily stuff do so because there is no correlation between what's on the character sheet and what's going on in the game world. Wizards, for example, don't have this issue. When the wizard player announces he's casting a spell and strokes it off his character sheet, in-game, there is an effect and there is an in-game rationale for why he cannot do it again.
There is no such rationale for a martial daily.
I 100% agree with this standpoint. It's completely, and utterly, true. However, my response is, "I don't care". Meta-game mechanics are an excellent method to balance in-game power. In a super hero game, the best way to balance Superman with Green Arrow is for Green Arrow to have lots of meta-game power. The bad guys attack superman instead of splatting Green Arrow, not because the DM decides, but because the Green Arrow has a meta-game mechanic where he can influence the game in a way that Superman's character cannot.
Now, I realize that this isn't everyone's bag. Totally get that. But, I would hope that both approaches can be reasonably addressed. I DO NOT WANT to go back to the days of balance over campaign (weak wizards grow to fantastic cosmic power, while fighters remain largely the same) nor do I want the caster/non-caster disparity that can occur in some editions of D&D.
As I understand it, those that dislike the Daily stuff do so because there is no correlation between what's on the character sheet and what's going on in the game world. Wizards, for example, don't have this issue. When the wizard player announces he's casting a spell and strokes it off his character sheet, in-game, there is an effect and there is an in-game rationale for why he cannot do it again.
There is no such rationale for a martial daily.
I 100% agree with this standpoint. It's completely, and utterly, true. However, my response is, "I don't care". Meta-game mechanics are an excellent method to balance in-game power. In a super hero game, the best way to balance Superman with Green Arrow is for Green Arrow to have lots of meta-game power. The bad guys attack superman instead of splatting Green Arrow, not because the DM decides, but because the Green Arrow has a meta-game mechanic where he can influence the game in a way that Superman's character cannot.
Now, I realize that this isn't everyone's bag. Totally get that. But, I would hope that both approaches can be reasonably addressed. I DO NOT WANT to go back to the days of balance over campaign (weak wizards grow to fantastic cosmic power, while fighters remain largely the same) nor do I want the caster/non-caster disparity that can occur in some editions of D&D.
Ahnehnois
First Post
The PF rage mechanic changed significantly, although it is still time-limited. I am not a fan of it.
I'm not trying to sanitize the past, I'm trying to explain why the outcry in this thread is here now but wasn't nearly as loud before 4e. It's because 4e took a small number of problematic mechanics and foisted them on everyone. If you're trying to say that this was not revolutionary, that is in some sense true. There is nothing innovative about martial dailies, they're just a much bigger problem now because they're more common.
One of many valid complaints that I didn't state.
I bet someone is typing up their objections right now. But I hope we can mostly agree on that, and I hope it is eventually presented in some form, which it is not in this playtest.
Ahnehnois
First Post
I think it's difficult, but not unsolvable.
Action points (or whatever you want to call them) are a great example of this. Trailblazer explicitly makes casters waste action points in order to give non-casters more of an advantage. This is fine. It is optional, and many people like these kinds of rules.
However, my fighter's ability to swing a sword a certain way should not be a metagame mechanic.
If we had clear separation as to what mechanic was describing the reality of the game world and what mechanic existed for narrative or metagame purposes, that would solve a lot of these debates, as to class abilities, hit points, and many other topics. It would also make it easier for people to tinker with the game and make it work for them.
So we should address this by adding unnecessary and arbitrary limitations to fighters and rogues? Now you lost me. Fighter dailies do not in and of themselves achieve this.
I think what you're advocating for is better high-level fighter abilities, and less powerful high-level magic. That would be good.
I think the great fear is not that 5e will use the AEDU system, but that fighters will be relegated back to attack, attack, attack and the rogue will be reduced to backstab, backstab, backstab. 3e feats for fighters and Pathfinder's rogue talents help, but they don't do the job well enough for most 4e players to make that martial class as dynamic as they were in 4e.
As well, I think it just plain bothers people less when they look at it from the perspective that abilities happen x times a day, whether you use a fatigue system or an AEDU system. AEDU makes it explicit, but it is same result no matter how deep you bury that basic fact. I will always see past the way the rules are presented to the gameplay results, which is why I mention the fact that daily powers lead to disappointment when you have a chance to miss with them, whereas you don't really consider it important enough to mention compared to "how realistic it feels".
Neither viewpoint is wrong, but it does show how our perspectives and priorities differ when we read the same stuff. In other words, if a fighter has a mechanic to give a special attack as a limited resource (whether fatigue or actions points or whatever), it is always going to be viewed by me as being similar to AEDU.
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Hussar
Legend
Ahnehnois said:
Why not? Why should there never be any metagame mechanics tied to your fighter's ability to swing a sword. That's the whole POINT of a metagame mechanic - it can be tied to anything. Whether you want to use Action Points, or whatever, the whole point of a meta-game mechanic is to allow the player more control over the action than what his character can actually do.
So, yup, you get that special Spinning Death Top maneuver once a day. It's certainly not the only way to do it. But, it is a simple and effective way. You could also have scaling difficulties (although that also comes with its own bag of issues) or there are other ways as well.
It's simply one more tool in the box. It's neither better, nor worse than other tools.
I don't agree that a fatigue mechanics is preferable to daily powers. D&D has long run on a daily cycle - for spells, for healing (which until 4e was mostly linked to spells anyway), for travel etc.
Putting all PCs onto the same cycle makes managing pacing, and enabling PCs to make comparably balanced contributions to encounters, much easier.
D&D has always combined its fiction with its meta. Hit points are both fiction (toughness, etc) and meta (luck, divine favour). Likewise for martial dailies. It's part of the charm of D&D, and in my view a strength. It makes various things - both mechanical aspects of play, and story aspects of play - possible that would be much harder to achieve in a system that was pure process simulation + action points.
As for whether daily powers are unbalancing - not when all PCs have them.
And as for a fighter's ability to swing a sword a certain way being metagame - why not? Sometimes you get luckier - hit harder, hit a more vulnerable area, whatever. That's what martial dailies are for.
Fully agreed. And this is what martial dailies are for. A combination of luck (you're guaranteed to get some big-damage hits off) and narrative control (you're guaranteed that some of your hits will do more than just hit point ablation).
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exZr9QLde8s"]5 Greatest Touchdowns of All Time[/ame]
Now...somebody tell me why the athletes involved didn't do this EVERY game.
Now...somebody tell me why the athletes involved didn't do this EVERY game.
Ahnehnois
First Post
I do not think that the PF fighter is good enough. I think that some TB mechanics, UA mechanics, and possibly other things I haven't thought of do much more. I am certainly not advocating that any fighter without daily powers is well-designed, merely that one with such powers is not.
I think the problem arises when people find themselves unable to do what they want to do without a good reason why. "You can't rage because you're out of rages" is a stupid reason. "You can't rage because you are so tired you can barely move" is a valid reason. A fatigue system addresses this.
The other problem I think is a legacy issue. People are used to being energizer bunnies if they play fighters, and when they are told their character has limitations, they are not happy. A fatigue system does not address this.
Optional module, anyone?
Interesting discussions going on in this forum, no doubt.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I should be able to swing my sword in any way that my character realistically could, as many times as he could, achieving the results that he could, without using a metagame mechanic. Then, if I also want to use a metagame mechanic to affect the outcome, I can. Again, I'm advocating for a clear separation of mechanics that are metagame and those that are in-game.Hussar said:
