LostSoul said:
1. The barbarian uses her Rages to contribute meaningfully in non-combat situations. Why doesn't the barbarian say, "Hey, I'm raged out, let's tackle this big monster tomorrow"?
2. The barbarian doesn't or can't use her Rages to contribute meaningfully in non-combat situations. Why doesn't the wizard - or other PC who has spent some resources - say, "Hey, I'm tapped out, let's tackle this big monster tomorrow"?
In both situations: because
all their work will be undone if they don't finish this thing.
I mean, you've solved the mystery. You know who done it. If you go to sleep for eight hours, they're going to take that time to get out of town, plant a new red herring, frame someone else, or otherwise get out of it in a million different ways. You will let them get away, to commit their crimes again!
Someone said:
Many, indeed most of the X-per-day abilities have limited or zero use outside combat and the number of realistic scenarios they'll be spent can be ignored. Except of course spell slots.
Even if I grant this (and I don't entirely), it doesn't necessarily follow that this is how it must be in 5e. I think any game that takes all the pillars into account can't be and won't be so myopic, and I'm not so cynical as to mistrust the dev team when they say they're taking the pillars into account.
It also doesn't necessarily follow that this is automatically a problem. Even if spell slots were the only way to do daily things outside of combat, the math can dictate its balance against everyone else's baseline +1
Someone said:
I've not seen any mechanic in 5e that suggests that wizards or any other caster will have worse ability checks than any other class, except probably rogue which is intended to be the skill monkey. The sample wizard even has a background feature that improves his knowledge checks, or seen any edition where the wizard was actually worse at skill use than any other character that was the official skill monkey.
We need to remove backgrounds from the equation since they are presumably interchangeable. Without that, you see everyone is roughly equal in the noncombat arena (in that they have little-to-nothing that does anything in it) except for the rogue, who is pretty good in Exploration. The wizard in the playtest only gains one Exploration ability,
Alarm, which isn't anything any character with some string and a bell can't do, and costs 1 gp to use.
So in this case, rather than go with baseline+1/3 = baseline+3/1, they seem to be going with baseline+1/3 = almost nothing.
Balanced (even a little unfair to the spellcaster).
Someone said:
We're talking about in-game astronomical cycles here, when the sun that shines over the characters sets and rises, not real world or gamist conventions.
I'm talking about gamist conventions.
I'm specifically talking about an "adventuring day" that is measured as a series of challenges between full recovery.
What that looks like in the story is incidental to the question of mechanical balance.
Someone said:
Now you're going to suggest that it's the DM mission to make sure they want to continue the adventuring day by the use of some plot devices. Which would lead us, full circle, at the first point: fixing the story into narrow constrains so it adapts to the rules, instead of the other, more sensible, way around which is fixing the set of rules so they let the DM do as he dam pleases without unbalancing the relative power between characters.
You don't need to "fix" the story. You do need to consider what the enemy is doing.
They take a rest. And the monsters, what, sit around with their thumbs up their noses after discovering their dead and missing friends and five dudes covered in their blood sleeping on the doorstep?
Or, do they flee?
Or, do they try and kill those five guys?
Or, do they just sit in their lairs and wait patiently for death like some depressed pig at the slaughterhouse?
Considering what the enemy does has the bang-on effect of implementing the "adventuring day" one way or the other.
Someone said:
You can find wisdom there.
You can also find nothing, and mistake it for wisdom.
Someone said:
The most precious and valuable resource there is in combat is the round. Even if the stars align and we have our 4 combats per day or the heavy handed fist of the DM forces them, being generous typically only the first 4 rounds of each combat are actually important to determine the winner before it enters mop-up phase. Then anyone who has more than 16 combat resources to spend is not doing any meaningful management. The fighter can swing his sword all day - but what that really means is 14384 rounds of wasted power. Meanwhile, any who has the option to squeeze the most of those precious, vital 6 seconds is going to be the most valuable and powerful character. And we know what kind of character that's going to be.
Meh, that's just number-fudging. 6:1, 4:1, 2:1, whatever ratio works.
