Forked Thread: Once per day non-magical effects destroy suspension of disbelief

[Steely Dan]

If it goes downhill we'll close it.

Ta very much.

So, Plane Sailing, if you ever make it down to London, and want to get in on a 4th Ed Planescape campaign, I am the man to call.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When dailies are this tiring, then the fighter must get penalties for the rest of the combat. It having some condition as result of the strike which requires 6 hours to cure but being able to fight like nothing happened makes no sense.

The condition is that he can't use that ability until he rests, maybe?

GnomeWorks describes it well.

Abstraction is at work again. Being at 1 hit point doesn't cause any penalties (a flaw that GnomeWorks would probably want to fix in a homebrew system - if it used anything like ablative hit points at all).
A vancian spellcaster in earlier editions of D&D also can't just rememorize spells or anything - something is stopping them from it - aren't they also fatigued? Is this modeled in rules, outside the fact that they just can't rememorize spells after they have expended their slots?
What about Psions with their power points? Does the expenditure of points not also represent a kind of fatigue? Where are their penalties?

 

[Derren]

The condition is that he can't use that ability until he rests, maybe?

When you strain muscles then the overall fighting ability suffers, not only the ability to do one specific attack.

But lets look at some of the extremely exhausting fighter abilities.

-Act of Desperation
You can only get angry because a friend dies once per day

-Deadly Payback
You can only counter an enemy once per day

-Defensive Training
The fighter can only fight disciplined once per day

-Reign of Terror
You can only stare at the enemies once per day

-Stalwart Guard
You can protect allies with your shield only once per day

-(Ranger)Open the Range
You can only keep the distance from enemies once per day

 

[GnomeWorks]

Abstraction is at work again. Being at 1 hit point doesn't cause any penalties (a flaw that GnomeWorks would probably want to fix in a homebrew system - if it used anything like ablative hit points at all).

Death spiral, for the win!

Combat sucks and is deadly. Don't do it if you don't have to.

A vancian spellcaster in earlier editions of D&D also can't just rememorize spells or anything - something is stopping them from it - aren't they also fatigued? Is this modeled in rules, outside the fact that they just can't rememorize spells after they have expended their slots?
What about Psions with their power points? Does the expenditure of points not also represent a kind of fatigue? Where are their penalties?

I don't know if the argument involving spellcasters is a good one, since the interpretation of what is actually going on when someone casts magic varies wildly.

But calling on psionics here is a good call. If you're mentally drained (0 PP), why doesn't that affect other things you can do?

Death spirals seem to be overwhelmingly perceived as badwrongfun, though, so I can't really blame WotC for not going down this road.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When you strain muscles then the overall fighting ability suffers, not only the ability to do one specific attack.

But lets look at some of the extremely exhausting fighter abilities.

-Act of Desperation
You can only get angry because a friend dies once per day

-Deadly Payback
You can only counter an enemy once per day

-Defensive Training
The fighter can only fight disciplined once per day

-Reign of Terror
You can only stare at the enemies once per day

-Stalwart Guard
You can protect allies with your shield only once per day

-(Ranger)Open the Range
You can only keep the distance from enemies once per day

That's why the best but apparently still hardest approach is to forget the simulationist approach and take the narrative one. The option to use any of these abilities require circumstances outside the control of the character. It's not just his brain, muscles, adrenaline, and not just the overall distance measured in squares between him and his enemies. It's something that is not detailed by the descriptive parts of the game system, and it is the player that has the control to have this circumstances happen. And yes, that might strain your "suspension of disbelief", because it reminds you it's a game. (In case you forgot that over rolling all those dice...)

List of options to handle dailies

A "neutral" approach is just to forget the system, off course, since it doesn't fit your playstyle/game philosophy.

Death spiral, for the win!

Combat sucks and is deadly. Don't do it if you don't have to.

No - do it when you stacked all the odds in your favor.

I don't know if the argument involving spellcasters is a good one, since the interpretation of what is actually going on when someone casts magic varies wildly.

But calling on psionics here is a good call. If you're mentally drained (0 PP), why doesn't that affect other things you can do?

Death spirals seem to be overwhelmingly perceived as badwrongfun, though, so I can't really blame WotC for not going down this road.

The Shadowrun approach to this was always to get cyberware, bioware, spells or ki powers that negated damage penalties, and to be so heavily armored and so strong in the offensive that you would never get hurt (or so barely that you could ignore it)

So, I say: "Massive Firepower - For the Win!"

Edit: And also: Automerge for the win!

 

[GnomeWorks]

No - do it when you stacked all the odds in your favor.

That works, too.

There is a bit of a death spiral in my system, at the moment, but I'm not too sure of what to do with it. It was hastily written back when we had static ability scores, but since we got rid of those, I'm not sure how it'll work right now... and refiguring hit points with the removal of both class and level was great fun.

I want combat to be an option, but not the obvious solution. I don't want it to kill PCs when it's necessary, but I don't want it to be a cake-walk, either.

If there is a death spiral, it's going to be simple and relatively minor. Ideally, you should notice it, and it will affect your ability to fight, but the effects would be simple to remember, and not make it so that you can't possibly succeed.

The Shadowrun approach to this was always to get cyberware, bioware, spells or ki powers that negated damage penalties, and to be so heavily armored and so strong in the offensive that you would never get hurt (or so barely that you could ignore it)

Sounds like it would get rather ridiculous rather fast...

 

[lutecius]

No, not particularly – try again, baby!

Why would I need to, "baby"? You haven't exactly debunked his points, or even bothered to address mine.

What was the point of this fork if you are going to dismiss any answer so easily? If that was just venting, there are blogs for that.

 

[Steely Dan]

Why would I need to, "baby"? /quote]



Oh come on, don't be like that – I think you and I could have a lot of fun together.

..Okay, the physical part can wait, but will you think about it?

 

[Ginnel]

Sorry I don't watch nor am I the slightest bit interested in MMA, but I am a huge (HUGE) fan of the sweet science. So please keep it simple for me and stick to boxing.

I suppose this also makes me a bit of sports grognard lol.

No it just means you're ignoring a valid arguement

however I will agree with you on the boxing (I'm getting back on to boxing later)

As we're in terms of abstract coolness, you can see your character trying to prep that daily move several times in a battle but the circumstances aren't right and it doesn't come off and you have to use another move instead, at-will/encounter, encounters you can see the same or after you've used them all just tiring enough that all you can now do is just pull off your at-wills.

Back to boxing with their encounters, say a hook which adds the stun condition, you can say your boxer is going for the hook he either hits or misses and the guy is stunned or not, another time later in the round you can use the boxers at will damage & push 1 square, describe this as a hook again but conditions weren't entirely right it hit and made him stagger but didn't stun him, next round your boxer gets to try the stun again, you could have the same again with an uppercut most blows just do damage but one where the oppurtunity to strike at an unguarded chin would be your encounter/daily going off and have extra effects/damage on top of your normal at will uppercuts which don't get that opening.

Breaking the suspension of disbelief arguement? Nah I don't think so, well maybe if your looking for holes.

 

[lutecius]

So similarly, in 4e, what if martial daily abilities represent such a supreme effort on the part of the character that he needs to rest before he can do it again? Perhaps certain muscles are overstrained, or he is fatigued in some way after he pulls off an exploit, so much so that he can't do exactly the same thing again until he has had some rest. He might attempt it, but his concentration, timing or balance will always be a little off, and in game terms, this could be represented by a lesser at-will or encounter ability (if he has an appropriate one available).

Each power would have to strain a particular muscle, independently of any other. And in some cases you would be too tired to execute a low level daily move twice, but perfectly able to pull off a high level one. Doesn't work for me.

This is why I would have preferred a common power point pool. So you could use an encounter or low level power twice, but dailies and high level ones would cost more points. That would be easier to rationalize as fatigue, ki or whatever.