PCs hoarding Daily Powers

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

EDIT: To address the actual question - I am aware of the danger, but in my group we managed to overcome it and use opportunities to spend daily powers. We learned that hoarding isn't as useful and gameplay enhancing as spending them at good moments. Waiting for the perfect moment is futile, but good moments happen plenty.

One thing I always wanted to try, but never could, was:
1) Run one really tough encounter that will probably end with a TPK if no dailies are used.
2) Then have the PCs fight a few weaker encounters.

How does this help you? Maybe you can at least "force" the players to use their dailies once. And show them that they are not automatically dead if they are later forced to fight without their daily power parachute.

Otherwise, time limits within encounters and over several encounters can help - they force to manage resources better. You don't want to blow all your resources, but - healing surges are limited, too, so you have to find an equilibrium between just sucking it up and spending the surges, and blowing through daily powers.

Time Limit scenarios:
- Stop the cultist from making the final blood sacrifice - while there are a few minions and a nasty Soldier or Brute blocking the access point.
- The PCs have to disarm a trap that spawns new enemies - if they can take the enemies down fast enough, this task becomes considerably easier since they might have a few rounds without being harassed by Minions or Lurkers. The mechanic for the trap could be a skill challenge that you repeat until they "got" it - and every round they don't do anything counts as a failure, and on each failed challenge, new threats appear.
(OF course, the PC do not get no more than challenge + initial monster XP. Don't create an infinite XP machine. ).

In either case it can be very useful if you include scenarios where the specific powers are particularly effective. A Wizard with a Acid Fog spell for example can negate artillery enemies pretty well (blocking line of sight and reducing the amount of "safe spots", a Paladin Dailies are often effective against singularly powerful and dangerous foes, like Elites, Solos and higher level monsters.)

 

[Amaroq]

So, any views on this- I really can't make the fights any harder, I'm throwing level 15+ encounters at a level 10-11 party (that's not a problem by the way- they're loving it).

Others experiencing this?

Players POV?

Both a player and a DM, here.

As a player, I'm definitely running into this: I've actually levelled without using a Daily , which strikes me as badly wrong. All I'll say is, when its obvious that something's a boss fight, I tend to think I need my dailies; when something isn't, I'm fully confident my party can dance through it without losses, so I'll go through Encounter powers as a first choice .. by the time I'm through them, I'm looking at a mop-up situation, where it rarely feels like the fight hangs in the balance.

If it still hangs in the balance, sure, I'm going Daily, and probably even before I use the final Encounter.

If something's obviously a climactic or boss encounter, then I unload my top Dailies from the get-go.

What's happening in our campaign, though, is our DM is aiming for a bit more sumulationism, and rarely gives us sufficient encounters in a day to push through most of our Healing Surges, etc .. so we'll often get to a day's rest with 75% of our Surges and most of our Dailies.

. . .

From a DM's perspective, I've tended to play a much "hotter" campaign, with the bad guys often coming in large but relatively weak numbers .. but just coming in wave after wave, rarely ever giving the party time to rest. I fully expect this next encounter path to result in their characters virtual clock-watching, waiting for 12 hours to have passed so that they can try to take an extended rest.

That style seems to encuorage sporadic Daily use, either for minion-slaughter, or when its clear that somebody is a lot stronger than the minions they've been fighting. My PCs skidded into their last extended rest with no dailies between 'em, one character dead, and two more characters down, including one character on zero healing surges .. while still able to win the day.

. . .

I'm wondering how much of this is the "continual stream of L+4 encounters", if I'm reading your post right.

Personally, as a player I'm not bad at judging the encounters our DM throws at us which are "hard"er than the others, and using my Dailies on them. If you're throwing nine encounters which are all "hard" at them, maybe they aren't reading any of them as "hard" and therefore worth using a Daily?

You might try varying encounter difficulty sufficiently, with a couple "easy" fights (maybe using terrain to keep them tactically interesting), and the "hard" fights clearly distinguishable from them. Think lieutenant, mini-boss, boss ...

You can lead into these simply by naming the lieutenant before they get to him. "The last orc staggers back, and falls to his knees. He spits out one last curse .. 'Ashtuk .. will .. kill you ...' ..." ("I chop off his head.") ("Okay, he's dead.") ...... Two encounters later, they burst into a room, and start slaughtering more orcs on a Surprise round. On their first turn of action, one of the orcs shouts "Ashtuk!! Help!" ... and your lieutenant, accompanied by a pair of big burly brute/soldier types, makes his entrance around the end of Round 2.

A.) The party have burned through encounter powers in 2 rounds of weak-orc-slaughter.

B.) The party know that Ashtuk is a bad-ass, because you've referred to him by name a couple times leading up to it.

C.) Your description indicates that he and his pair are buffer than the orcs they've been fighting, so they know that this is a tougher-than-expected fight.

D.) Ashtuk's first attack, possibly a Daily, ought to be scary.

. . .

The other approach you can take is simply making it clear that one or more party members are in trouble: grab and kidnap, stun, dominate, separate from the party, etc ... this puts a time pressure on the combat: we don't just have to win, we have to win now; that will encourage Daily use.

A creature with below-average hit points, but well above-average damage, can entice Dailies. After he whomps on somebody hard enough, the Defender will know he has to engage, and everybody is going to want to take down the enemy Striker before he can deal a lot more damage.

Artificial time limit encounters work very well: think Bond-villain, with some minions who are slowly cranking up the ballista that is going to shoot the captive Bond-girl as soon as they have it cranked up. The party doesn't know how many rounds thats going to take - and there's plenty of traps and bad guys between here and there. That'll entice some Dailies out of 'em!

 

[fba827]

For me, it's mainly that I want to save it for "the big things" because i never know what is around the corner.

Of course, in a particular battle when I realize "this is a big thing" chances are, we've already gone several rounds and by then it feels like a waste because "by the time i get in a good position to use it effectively combat will probably be over soon"

(a similar problem with consumables, i either completely forget i have them, or i keep thinking i'll save them for some other adventure that it might be needed for, but yes, i know i just have issues )

 

[Iceman]

The home game I play in, everyone tends to hoard their dailies for the Big Boss. Though we're second level, so we only have one each.
There are times when, sure, a daily would help speed along the mid-dungeon-level encounter, but we seem to be more willing to grind through than to blast ahead. (( And it seems like any time someone breaks this trend and uses a daily in the mid encounter, the dmg is overkill. ))

Whereas the LFR games I've played often build in difficulty from one fight to the next. This creates a "I bet the next one will be worse" mentality that does prevent early usage of the daily power - but most players do unload in the final fight (or what they think is the final fight). It's real interesting to play the mods where the first fight is the hardest - you either figure it out fast and use 'em or you Really blow through the later fights.

For me, I often *try* to consider using a daily for any encounter, but it chiefly depends on what that power does. Good multi-targeting dmg, for instance, is rarely worth saving for a big boss, esp. if I think it'll be a solo or elite-with-minions.
Plus, I have a couple PCs that have daily powers with encounter-long effects - if I don't use those in the first or second round, preferably with a high init, then I sometimes ignore them because their total impact on the fight will be greatly diminished. Similarly, any power that is good at turning the tables or making one baddie ineffective for multiple rounds is going to be ignored if the fight is going pretty well. And the power that is heavily dependent on enemy positioning might never see play (close blast - targets all, for instance).

-VIC

 

[Ace]

This type of thing is common to every edition. For a while back in the 2e days we stopped giving out potions and scrolls as treasure for a while as no one would ever use them.

My advice is to not sweat it. If your guys can get through the encounter without having to "form blazing sword" so be it. Thats a mark of skilled play in my book

Still if you really want them to use the daily powers, a gentle reminder is just fine. "I am not here to hose you, you can use a daily if you need to"

 

[Goonalan]

For me, it's mainly that I want to save it for "the big things" because i never know what is around the corner.

Of course, in a particular battle when I realize "this is a big thing" chances are, we've already gone several rounds and by then it feels like a waste because "by the time i get in a good position to use it effectively combat will probably be over soon"

(a similar problem with consumables, i either completely forget i have them, or i keep thinking i'll save them for some other adventure that it might be needed for, but yes, i know i just have issues )

This is precisely (from my view) what's happening, except for the fact that combat then goes on for another hour (not helped again by skype, maptools & life- children et al, my players are dotted around the globe, one of them is just sorting out how to play between 2 AM and 7 AM in Thailand when he's on his honeymoon, I pity his new wife)

So the last two combats have been horrible for the PCs- Foulspawn Berserkers (and lots of other Foulspawn) with their Aura abilities which cause attackers to target random creatures rather than the Foulspawn- this sent the PCs cleric from 57 HP to -8 HP on the second round of combat, and still no Daily Power use.

The rest of the fight, which soon after saw all PCs save one bloodied, several in very precarious positions and... still on with the encounters and at wills.

The point is the fight drags out, the players spend a hour-and-a-half getting through it rather than use a Daily because they think, the bad guy's just around the corner...

The next fight on saw them against an Ogre Warhulk that was blocking the path and a Medusa Archer that at one point hit five out of the six PCs with her Petrifying stare, one PC survived only with a reroll. The players are not dying through HP loss but are in a very precarious situation- still no Daily use (save the reroll).

To address some of the other points made, the clock is ticking method works, I've tried it- the point is my campaign is a story and in places the clock ticks, in others they have time on their hands, I can't do it all the time.

Multiple Encounter- I've run eight encounters in a row, all small, with no time for a short rest between them- the PCs were being chased over a fort/bridge across a chasm by Gnolls, Hyenas and a Shadow Dragon; and the fort/bridge started to collapse- yeah that works, and some dailies got spent but once again I can't do this every time.

We've been playing for a year and a half now, and I like to think I'm a kind and considerate DM, they certainly e-mail me nice stuff (thank you's for this and that). I work with all of my players to get them through their character arcs, I teach narrative structure for screenwriting and electronic game design as part of my job, so story is all- and I have a story for all of the characters, all the way to 30th level- my players know this. That said if the dice falls then they're dead meat, which is as it should be, what I'm trying to say is they trust me... From my POV it seems there's some unwritten rule as regards Daily Powers- wait on the big guy, which still doesn't work, example.

Arborean Speaker the Parsley Prophet, his massive Cave Bear, an Arborean Plant Terror and then a few troops- the big bad for the last portion of Level of Thunderspire, the fight had been built up- the Pcs found out about the Parsley Prophet way back when. Eruan, our Mage, is carrying around the head of his mum- Vyrellis (in a snowglobe like affair- don't ask what the snow effect is- dead flesh, oopsie).

The grand finale.

And grind, and even then they get through it, just, two Daily Powers spent, even then the Parsley Prophet gets away (not for long).

It's like the Daily Power macros are sacred...

I asked my players, as I said, why they do this and pointed out that if we got through the fights quicker we could get into some of the nice RP and the like, or even just more fights- obviously I couched it in better terms.

And they agreed, they should use their Daily Powers more often, they agreed that more often than not they end the day with more than half their Daily Powers unspent. Regardless of the situation they seem to think, this from the horses mouth-

"something really bad ass will come along"

I'm running out of bad ass, I've run multiple low level encounters, I've had timers- I've thrown Level 17 encounters at them (when they were level 9) and I get a rise, they spend Daily Powers here and there... but between the climatic end of the world battles they're content to 'get through it' without using Dailies- even if it adds an hour to fight.

Playing the H series of adventures is perhaps not helping as the final fight is always some way away, particularly in the Pyramid of Shadows, I have however amped up the section bosses within the Pyramid, and left lots of clues and snippets around to build each section boss up into a end-of-section battle.

Thinking about it again, and with the insight you've provided (thanks) then I think my problems are really these-

1. Fights take too long (for me) sometimes because the players horde their daily Powers- that might be what bothers me rather than their not using their Daily Powers.

2. Because we play via Maptools and Skype then quite often players are away from the screen for some of the time- putting kids to sleep, getting drink/food, nature calls etc. So people sometimes arrive at the table see what they see and then just use...

3. The Wizards adventures are too dense (fight-wise) which leaves the PCs thinking, better not spend my daily, there's another one of these fights along in a minute.

4. having jumped on them before with multiple encounter (no rest)/timed event/situational problem and/or really bad ass bad guy they're always weary of me pulling a trick again- therefore they save for a rainy day.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll read it all through again and pick out the pointers, no doubt I'll make use of some/all of it.

Cheers PDR

 

[Herobizkit]

On some level, it could be that your group is simply a well-rounded cast of classes run by a tactically-sound bunch of players. They, as a whole, have found a set of strategies that simply works ALL the time.

In such a case, it's no wonder that they aren't using their Dailies... they simply don't need to, as their co-operation is enough to defeat encounters of virtually every level.

(I recall reading a blog post about this somewhere, but I can't remember where... does this sound familiar to anyone else?)

How to fix it? You don't, really. It's up to player if s/he wants to spend his/her character resources. I feel that the tendency to hoard available "spells" falls back to the Vancian spellcasting system from former editions of D&D; the whole caster shtick of memorizing a set number of spells, some of which many not even be needed, then deciding whether or not to actually use them as a full 8 hours' rest was needed to get them back.

Resource management is a player thing, not a DM thing.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Steps to Getting Paranoid Players to Use Dailies:

Step 1: Tell them they will probably need to. "This is just a fair warning, guys, I know you tend to be a little reluctant to use your dailies, but some of th encounters today will be so hard, that you'll need them."

Step 2: Deliver on your promise. Relentlessly difficult encounters. Looks like you're doing that.

Step 3: Fudge a bit on the HP. Perhaps a solo or an elite only ever gets bloodied or dies after at least one daily has been used on them. If your party isn't using dailies, the thing will literally never die.

Step 4: Know their powers, and present "perfect" opportunities for them, and point it out. If one of the dailies is a single-target, high-damage power, point out that it looks like nothing will bring this great colossus down. If one of them is a group-target spell, have minions pour out of a "gauntlet hole" and surround the party in suggestive shapes. Then, tell them, "You know, your daily might be really effective if you use it now."

Step 5: Shut down encounter powers. The powers your party loves to use are negated somehow -- high energy resistance, or big regeneration, unless they use a daily.

Step 6: Make that encounter obviously the final encounter before they get an extended rest. Telegraph this: "After this combat, all will be peaceful for at least two days."

After you've "broken the ice," they might be more inclined to use them in the future.

Or not, but at least you'll get to see one big encounter where they're using dailies like throwing candy at a parade.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hmm...I've always had the same problem playing spellcasters in 3E. I can't help but want to save up my spells just in case. I do have a suggestion for your game, based on my experiences, though:

Just for this campaign, on a trial basis*, let the players use any daily power they know for each usage they get per day. If they knew 3 powers and had 3 daily slots, they could use the same one twice, another once. Or one all three times if they wanted.

Reason: I found in 3E that when playing a Sorcerer, I ran into this problem a lot less. I might still save 1 slot of my highest levels, but the hoarding was much less. When you're only giving up some generic slot that could potentially be a whole bunch of things, I guess you just lack the same attachment to it that you have when it's a case of "This is my only Fireball prepared for the day, if I use it now, I won't have it if I need it later." The uncertainty of whether this is the best point to use a particular spell/power or if you'll need it much more desprately in half an hour can become paralyzing.

*Because it's definitely a power boost, and if you find some daillies are significantly better than others to the point where you would never want to see them used more than once/day, this houserule could break your game.

 

[S'mon]

I think you would get more Dailies use if you reversed tactics, if you had

(a) Fewer fights per day - "Hey, this'll be our last fight before the extended rest, better use that Daily!"

(b) Easier fights - "Might as well use it now, after all it's not like a killer BBEG is just around the corner!"

In short: Your piling on the pressure is causing a form of defensive turtling. Ease off and see what happens.