Rule-of-Three: 07/10/2012
ExploderWizard
Hero
Too much fiddly tactical mess in an abstract system with ablative hit points is worthless IMHO.
I take it your DM never saw intelligence table ll (pg 10 in the 1E PHB)?
Your chance to know a given spell improved with higher INT as did the minimum and maximum number of spells you could learn.
So yes you did get more spells for a high INT. Actually more spells not extra slots. More spell slots just encourage wizards to think with their spellbooks instead of their supposedly gifted minds.
Fifth Element
Legend
The context makes it clear that he meant daily spell slots, as anyone with any experience of both 1E and 3E would know.
That intelligence table led to some rather counter-intuitive play by the wizard in my 2E game. She deliberately rejected the chance to copy a spell from a scroll into her spellbook because she was closing in on her maximum number of spells for that level and wanted to keep the remaining slots open for spells that were more useful than the one on that scroll.
In regard to the "5 minute adventuring day", one problem is that there are only story/world reasons not to take a long rest whenever you can -- there are few if any mechanical rewards for pressing on. In 4E, milestones get you extra daily magic item uses (eventually nixed) and action points (which are of diminishing value if you start accumulating more than you expect to be able to use that day). In prior editions, the only reward for pressing on is that you might go into a new encounter with your buffs from a previous encounter still in effect -- not much incentive if you have time to rest up, regain all of your resources, and re-cast those buffs. All you lose from taking an extended rest is time -- and the value of the lost time is strictly up to DM fiat.
Maybe each encounter during a day should grant more XPs than the one before it? After all, it is more difficult to clear out seven dungeon rooms in one day than one at a time over the course of a week, so maybe the players should be rewarded for accomplishing a more difficult task.
In regard to the "5 minute adventuring day", one problem is that there are only story/world reasons not to take a long rest whenever you can -- there are few if any mechanical rewards for pressing on. In 4E, milestones get you extra daily magic item uses (eventually nixed) and action points (which are of diminishing value if you start accumulating more than you expect to be able to use that day). In prior editions, the only reward for pressing on is that you might go into a new encounter with your buffs from a previous encounter still in effect -- not much incentive if you have time to rest up, regain all of your resources, and re-cast those buffs. All you lose from taking an extended rest is time -- and the value of the lost time is strictly up to DM fiat.
Maybe each encounter during a day should grant more XPs than the one before it? After all, it is more difficult to clear out seven dungeon rooms in one day than one at a time over the course of a week, so maybe the players should be rewarded for accomplishing a more difficult task.
tuxgeo
Adventurer
Instead of housing such a distinction in Themes, perhaps WotC could house the distinction in sub-classes, thus:
(1) The Arcanist, who gets no At-Wills but does get Ritual Casting;
(2) The Mage, who gets At-Wills and School Specialization but no Rituals; and
(3) The Witch, who gets one At-Will and a Familiar. ("Sound familiar?")
That way, even people who don't use Backgrounds and Themes could still play the type of Wizard they prefer. ("It's an ideal solution!")
Tovec
Explorer
My question is what happens if you want to run a game that is SHORTER than they planned for. Too often I am in the position where I'm NOT having the party do 4 encounters a day. Instead they'll usually crank out one maybe two (typically they are larger but that is really irrelevant) and then rest. That is intentional on their behalf and mine. I don't want to have to push through 4 encounters every (in game) day just to have them use up their powers. This consequently has them have too many powers or too many options for the encounters of their level, with very few ways of balancing it or reducing their strength.
That is a major complaint I have with psionics. As I was informed by my powergaming psionics player one time "yes but if we have 5 encounters today I'm screwed." Since that never happened he was able to more easily "nova" than anyone else in the party and I hated it.
--Also note that nova situation or scry and fry almost never happened in my games.
I'm just curious, are you a DM .. like ever?
Also, being at full power after every fight works for some but it definitely doesn't work for others.
Also, that would effectively mean you could go from killing rats in a cellar to killing Asmodeus all without having a sniffle slow you down.
Also, if your group hates spending time during their precious gameplay time doing the "downtime" stuff then skip it. That is fine, skip it. I once played in a game where it was assumed, as a standing order, that all party members had free access to buying and selling any and all gear between games. It was a very rushed and crazy game. Don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun, but it wasn't something I wanted to have in every game and certainly not in every campaign. It was very immersion breaking - it was our weekly meatgrinder game.
Bear traps cause a -1? ONLY?
How does it mend? When does it mend?
A -1 speed penalty. What does that even mean?
I though the biggest reason the spellcasters wanted to go nova was because going nova provided the following (where not going nova didn't):Rodney Thompson said:
1: Allowed you to kill things really quickly.
2: Allowed insane combinations of spells and effects.
3: Allowed scry and fry tactics, or any tactics that were "teleport in and wreak havoc"
I didn't realize that wizards went nova because it was a desire to do things magical all the time.
Heck, the only times in our games where wizards blew through their higher level spells and were out was when it was necessary. Which then necessitated the need to rest and recoup those spells. Yes they could use lower levels spells - which they invariably still had - but those were often not nearly as useful as their highest level at any given moment.
Yeah, about half the time.
Right, I am just stating my preferences. Just one view of many.
Indeed. And one could play that way. Or not. It's not like I haven't seen 15 levels in 15 days, in previous editions of D&D with monty haul campaigns. It's a choice. However, it is not a wild assumption that there will be down time between adventures for most normal campaigns.
If it is skippable, I will. If game balance between characters hinges on it, then I can't.
Or character is bedridden for 2 weeks, then dies from infection... whatever mechanic seems appropriate for the setting/campaign/adventure/group.
It's not like I'm presenting fleshed out rules, just a hypothetical scenario of what might happen, and types of scenarios I wouldn't mind seeing. You're reading way too much into it.
Instead of housing such a distinction in Themes, perhaps WotC could house the distinction in sub-classes, thus:
(1) The Arcanist, who gets no At-Wills but does get Ritual Casting;
(2) The Mage, who gets At-Wills and School Specialization but no Rituals; and
(3) The Witch, who gets one At-Will and a Familiar. ("Sound familiar?")
That way, even people who don't use Backgrounds and Themes could still play the type of Wizard they prefer. ("It's an ideal solution!")
This is something that I think would be a great addition to the core.
Basically the 1st level wizard starts with 3 spells per day and 4 spells known.
Then they pick a wizard tradition:
Apprentice: You were taught be a more experienced wizard who thought you several low level spells. Gain 3 Daily Spells Known.
Arcanist: You found a wizard's spellbook and managed to understand a few minor spells after many readings. Gain 3 At-will Spells Known.
Apprentice: Prepared Spells: alarm, burning hands, comprehend languages, grease, magic armor, shield, sleep. Cantrips: None.
Arcanist: Prepared Spells: burning hands, comprehend languages, shield, sleep. Cantrips: magic missile, ray of frost, shocking grasp.
Moldvay Basic didn't give you short-rest-only resources, but I think it was intended to deal with your real-life issue. I think that it was intended that at the end of each session the PCs would leave the dungeon. And then returning to home base, and recovering resources with a week or two of rest was taken for granted - next session's play begins back at the dungeon entrance!
Personally I enjoy the extra complexity that daily resources add - my group uses not only dailies, surges and APs but also the pre-Essentials daily magic item use rules - but I like encounter powers as well, and if I had to choose between dailies-only or encounter powers only, I'd choose encounter powers for the sorts of reason you give.
Can't the GM vary the levels of the encounters, and/or their composition. Then the challenge will change even if the PCs are mechanically always the same going in. (This is what I used to do in my Rolemaster game, when the PCs were almost always at full strength going in - because when they got low on resources they would teleport home and rest up!)
I don't think that recovery time puts much of a dent in this. Assuming 4 encounters per day, and 12 encounters per level, that's 3 days per level. Let's call it a week to allow for a bit of travel time between rests. You can do the whole game in less than a year of ingame time.
If you want the passage of large amounts of time in D&D, you're not going to get it out of recovery times, unless these becomes much, much longer than they traditionally have been.
The 24-hour refresh cycle has several serious problems:
• gaming-ending disruptions by a 5-minute workday
• classes forever out of balance because the Wizard can semi-nova, and the Fighter cannot
• the Wizard cant keep up with an adventure story that has too many encounters
• the DM must ruin the adventure story with stupid pretexts to enforce mechanical rests
And so on.
Fortunately, it is easy to fix the 24-hour refresh.
Instead, allow players to refresh their “dramatic resources” whenever they can get a 1-hour rest.
Then if the day gets busy, the Wizard can prepare spells in the middle of the day, and press on with the rest of the non-daily classes. Since both the Wizard and the Fighter can press on, it is easier to balance these classes with eachother.
It allows for more organic storytelling.
• gaming-ending disruptions by a 5-minute workday
• classes forever out of balance because the Wizard can semi-nova, and the Fighter cannot
• the Wizard cant keep up with an adventure story that has too many encounters
• the DM must ruin the adventure story with stupid pretexts to enforce mechanical rests
And so on.
Fortunately, it is easy to fix the 24-hour refresh.
Instead, allow players to refresh their “dramatic resources” whenever they can get a 1-hour rest.
Then if the day gets busy, the Wizard can prepare spells in the middle of the day, and press on with the rest of the non-daily classes. Since both the Wizard and the Fighter can press on, it is easier to balance these classes with eachother.
It allows for more organic storytelling.
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