Here, Let Me Fix "Powers Per Day" For You

[Shadeydm]

Possible explanations:

1. What wound? There was no wound, yo uwere just really tired but your comrade inspired you.
2. Oh, that wound. Yeah, it hurts a lot, but Bob the Warlord is right, we have to fight on! I can lie down when I am dead.

4E almost requires you to give up the idea that hit points = meat.

And that was thier first and possibly thier biggest mistake short of trashing the prior edition as a part of the marketing.

Hit Points either are videogamey on their own, or they are abstractions.

No its not a binary choice sorry.

How does this work in a more open-ended game, a sand bax or hex crawl or whatever, where the players set their goals? How many of those are time-boxed? .

its not just about time its about the world not being static. The monsters don't just stop moving when your PC moves off screen...or maybe yours do idk.

How fast do you think new traps can be made? Undead creation usually costs resources, how much has the enemy? Do you just handwave it? Ambushes just tend to mean that you create another 15 minute workday, if they actually work. And you can make ambushes even on a 12 hour workday - just get your damn dungeon organized, evil mastermind, and don't just let the party stroll through room by room!

Its all situational maybe the baddies just pack up and leave if thier situation is impossible it has to be looked at on a case by case basis. If you made the adventure then you should know how adventure will evolve in that situation.

The trick is to not get hurt. That means rapidly defeat your enemies thanks to your high initiative, and to be armored heavily and generally use all the tricks at your disposal. Fact is, if you amount something like a moderate wound (in 3E at least), you cannot fight effectively anymore.

Fact for whom? So if one of your PCs get wounded they retreat from a fight, well thats one way to play the game I suppose.

 

[pemerton]

One thing that occured to me - the real problem of 15 minute adventure days is not really that it's 15 minute long. It is that it benefits one subset of the party and not the other, namely the guys with powerful daily abilities become more powerful than those without powerful daily abilities. And if you don't have the 15 minute adventuring day, the spellcasters may feel weak or unneeded since they don't really have much to contribute if they don't get to blow some spells.

Yes.

I've talked about this in other threads, but not this one: the issue with daily powers, and the 15 minute day, isn't just (or even primarily) the moderate inanity of the 15 minute day - rather, it's the imbalance that nova-ing introduces into the game, unless either (i) everybody can nova, or (ii) the fighters, rogues etc without nova capability are as strong as nova-ing spell users.

Of course, as you point out, (ii) will cause balance issues in the opposite direction if the party can't agree to rest and recharge the casters after every nova.

In my two long-running Rolemaster campaigns, the first moved towards balance over time because everyone brought in casters, while the second was set up on a balanced basis because we mechanically nerfed casters to put non-casters on a par with nova-ing casters.

 

[pemerton]

Its all situational maybe the baddies just pack up and leave if thier situation is impossible it has to be looked at on a case by case basis. If you made the adventure then you should know how adventure will evolve in that situation.

I think that this relates back to the management of time, scene framing and player incentives.

I don't object to the baddies packing up and leaving. But given that the players can be pretty confident that something equally interesting will turn up to take their place, they have to be pretty invested to risk their PCs and push that much harder to take down the baddies even when short on resources.

Burning Wheel uses various techniques to try to produce this degree of investment and risk: Belief mechanics, connected to a Fate Point feedback loop (so pushing hard for your Beliefs also generates resources), plus GMing advice which means that if the baddies take your PC down they generally won't kill him/her. Capture or defeat will instead result in more adventure-inducing, Belief-crossing complications. All of this makes taking risks more palatable, I think.

Whereas D&D has fewer devices to displace expedient calculations on the party of the players. And once they are engaged in expedient calculations, why are they going to care if the baddies move on? They'll just find someone else to loot!

 

[Shadeydm]

I think that this relates back to the management of time, scene framing and player incentives.

I don't object to the baddies packing up and leaving. But given that the players can be pretty confident that something equally interesting will turn up to take their place, they have to be pretty invested to risk their PCs and push that much harder to take down the baddies even when short on resources.

Burning Wheel uses various techniques to try to produce this degree of investment and risk: Belief mechanics, connected to a Fate Point feedback loop (so pushing hard for your Beliefs also generates resources), plus GMing advice which means that if the baddies take your PC down they generally won't kill him/her. Capture or defeat will instead result in more adventure-inducing, Belief-crossing complications. All of this makes taking risks more palatable, I think.

Whereas D&D has fewer devices to displace expedient calculations on the party of the players. And once they are engaged in expedient calculations, why are they going to care if the baddies move on? They'll just find someone else to loot!

Thats fine if the PCs aren't interested in the story and let the baddies leave and look for something else to loot. This isn't a system problem. Either the game is working as intended or there is a player/DM issue playstyle issue.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Fact for whom? So if one of your PCs get wounded they retreat from a fight, well thats one way to play the game I suppose.

You don't even get there. You do everything you can to avoid that from happeneing, because if it does, i tis likely you will not survive the entire run unless you're already done.

I've played Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, and usually, combats are not "balanced" in the 4E sense - the enemy is usually overmatched by the player characters and has no real chance. If they have a chance because you were rash or underestimated the opposition, you're likely losing someone in that run (well, he may burn a ton of Karma in SR to avoid that from happening). That can be an interesting playstyle, I think. And in D&D, it is often mimicked by tactics that involve a heavy use of spells to ensure that your enemy does not get a chance. Which in D&D usually implied the 15 minute adventuring day.

Thats fine if the PCs aren't interested in the story and let the baddies leave and look for something else to loot. This isn't a system problem. Either the game is working as intended or there is a player/DM issue playstyle issue.

No, it's not fine, because even where you not interested in the specific story arc, you may be interested in every player contributing equally meaningful during combat - and the 15 minute adventuring work day with mobile villain bases will benefit those that have powerful resources and the ability to nova over those that don't. The game is simply unbalanced for this style of play.

If D&D Next wants to satisfy a wide variety of play styles, but doesn't support this one, I am not convinced that it will achieve its goals.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm questioning whether its possible to always, in every situation, have realistic plot based reasons for 3 to 4 fights per day plus convenient wandering monsters such that a narrow window of properly balanced game play can be enforced.

I've never planned for 3-4 fights er day on purpose. I plan the story and adapt to the players.


However, I do enjoy a system that after 3-4 encounters it appears the players are getting a little stretched and fatigued...dangerous.

So it's more like guidelines than rules...I don't force it...but I'm aware of it.
(In case the story calls for 10 encounters in one day, I should be aware there "might" be problems...hehe)

 

[Shadeydm]

You don't even get there. You do everything you can to avoid that from happeneing, because if it does, i tis likely you will not survive the entire run unless you're already done.

I've played Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, and usually, combats are not "balanced" in the 4E sense - the enemy is usually overmatched by the player characters and has no real chance. If they have a chance because you were rash or underestimated the opposition, you're likely losing someone in that run (well, he may burn a ton of Karma in SR to avoid that from happening). That can be an interesting playstyle, I think. And in D&D, it is often mimicked by tactics that involve a heavy use of spells to ensure that your enemy does not get a chance. Which in D&D usually implied the 15 minute adventuring day.


No, it's not fine, because even where you not interested in the specific story arc, you may be interested in every player contributing equally meaningful during combat - and the 15 minute adventuring work day with mobile villain bases will benefit those that have powerful resources and the ability to nova over those that don't. The game is simply unbalanced for this style of play.

If D&D Next wants to satisfy a wide variety of play styles, but doesn't support this one, I am not convinced that it will achieve its goals.

I'm sorry I seem to be having some trouble following you here what playstyle is DDN not supporting?

 

[SkidAce]

I don't think it was ever mandated in any rulebook; I think it just sort of evolved through the years.

A while ago, a group of 1st level characters encountered an ogre in a cave. I had told them earlier that ogres were notoriously stupid, so I expected them to try to hoodwink the ogre into letting them pass. But no, they drew swords and attacked. The resulting battle killed two of the characters. Then the players got angry with me because I didn't give them a balanced encounter.

"We are only first level!" they cried. "Why are you making us fight ogres at first level?"

My response: a facepalm.

I did not "make" them attack the ogre. To the contrary, I had given them more than enough hints about how to handle the situation. But as soon as they saw the ogre, everyone's eyes went to their character sheets and they started planning an ambush. I guess for some players, "monster" always means "combat."

"must spread around...etc....etc.."

I would XP this comment every hour from now to Friday if I could.

Simple...yet profound..

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm sorry I seem to be having some trouble following you here what playstyle is DDN not supporting?

The play style where the player are highly cautios and focus on their survival changes, using their best resources against enemies to minimize personal risk and choose to rest safely early and often (e.g. 15 minute adventuring days), story consequences be damned. Under this play style, characters without daily resources are weak, since they do not have any powerful resources they spend early.

Or a play style where little combat actually happens each day, as the characters are busy with non-combat activity (possibly to set up a major combat, maybe independent of that), where again, casters (meaning every class with major daily resources) dominate.

Or a play style where characters are expected to run through many combat encounters during the day, so many that spells will feel unnecessary and the spellcasters have little to do or run out of spells early, where non-casters dominate.

Or a play style that wants the freedom to switch, based on other demands - player mood, story or whatever - between these modes, but without doing each equally often or switch regularly (meaning that either there could be long rows of "boredom" for some players, over several session, or that over the course of the campaign, one variant dominated and benefitted the according group of characters).

 

[Shadeydm]

The play style where the player are highly cautios and focus on their survival changes, using their best resources against enemies to minimize personal risk and choose to rest safely early and often (e.g. 15 minute adventuring days), story consequences be damned. Under this play style, characters without daily resources are weak, since they do not have any powerful resources they spend early.

Or a play style where little combat actually happens each day, as the characters are busy with non-combat activity (possibly to set up a major combat, maybe independent of that), where again, casters (meaning every class with major daily resources) dominate.

Or a play style where characters are expected to run through many combat encounters during the day, so many that spells will feel unnecessary and the spellcasters have little to do or run out of spells early, where non-casters dominate.

Or a play style that wants the freedom to switch, based on other demands - player mood, story or whatever - between these modes, but without doing each equally often or switch regularly (meaning that either there could be long rows of "boredom" for some players, over several session, or that over the course of the campaign, one variant dominated and benefitted the according group of characters).

I don't see how DDN prevents any of those playstyles. I see where people might not enjoy those playstyles but that is far from not allowing or supporting. People can play that way in any edition if they enjoy doing so.