Rule of Three 2/28

[mach1.9pants]

It sounds like they're still thinking in terms of abilities used on a per unit time basis. That's a problem.

That is a good point, I wonder how DnD-land would go with per adventure or per session abilities?

 

[Hussar]

That is a good point, I wonder how DnD-land would go with per adventure or per session abilities?

I honestly think a lot of people's heads would fall off if you went that meta-game for resource management. It's not like it's new. Lots of games do this. But, wow, I can hear the pop and sizzle of people's brains blowing out their left nostril at the very thought that you'd have abilities that are "per adventure" or "per session".

 

[Kingreaper]

Problem is, you've just played right into the 15 MAD's group's hands. You've grouped all the kobolds into one, nice, convenient place where the group can now use maximum firepower for maximum effect. So, we just mopped up the entire adventure in 3 days, instead of the 4 it would take the speedy group. Win!

If the entire dungeon's worth of kobolds, all at once, tactically positioned and ready for a fight, aren't a deadly threat for even a fully loaded party, then the dungeon isn't a reasonable threat for the party.

There's no dungeon such that it would take 4 days worth of fights to fight through, but if fought all at once, with moderately sane tactics, you'd win in one encounter.

Sure, if all the kobolds cram together in fireball radius, and don't react when they see the wizard coming, it might work. But that's not plausible.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That is a good point, I wonder how DnD-land would go with per adventure or per session abilities?

Probably not much better.

I wonder how it would go if character abilities were either usable at will or imposed fatigue through some centralized, meaningful mechanic (preferably the former).

 

[Hassassin]

I liked the linked article. Now onto the kobolds.


People, your kobolds are way tame. If my players attempted a 15MAD approach with kobolds of all things, they wouldn't just sit there. Or have escaped with their treasure. They would at least have done both of those (50% chance the party goes after the right kobolds). And tracked down any monsters they know of in the area, to lure them to attack the party. And trapped every place the can manage.

Oh, and if the party tries to fix things with another 15MAD? They've already destroyed or defiled the Holy Flask, since it's obviously unlucky and attracts the wrong sort of attention.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

It sounds like they're still thinking in terms of abilities used on a per unit time basis. That's a problem.

Abilities per unit time has existed since the dawn of the game, so I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Abilities per unit time has existed since the dawn of the game, so I don't see what the problem is.

They have, and they've always been at the center of people's problems with the games (fighter/caster issues and 15 minute adventuring days to name two really obvious ones). They're unrealistic and unbalanced and needlessly complex. And they're very easy to do without.

Vancian magic is marginally tolerable (because it's magic), and fatigue is alright if you're going for grittiness, but the rest, the stuff that has no precedent, would be better off gone.

 

[keterys]

I'd much rather that instead of defining things in terms of what you can do in a _day_, it defined it in terms of something less regulated by the passage of time. Then the DM can decide what that is.

Maybe some decide that is per day and wonder why anyone would even talk about 15 minute days, another decides it's per level of the dungeon, per 10 rooms, another decides it's per entire adventure, and the last guy decides it's per session, cause he doesn't want to be bothered tracking hp and uses when his group only gets together every 8 weeks.

But if you make it "per day" then it's just a question of self-policing. If a wizard has 10 awesome things to do, some will use that in 5-10 different combats, and some will use it in the first 10 rounds, then advocate a rest. Or use most of them for long term bonuses and have enough for 2 rounds of ridiculous combat where they outshine anyone who isn't a spellcaster. And some groups will like or dislike different approaches, from one end of the spectrum to another.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'd much rather that instead of defining things in terms of what you can do in a _day_, it defined it in terms of something less regulated by the passage of time. Then the DM can decide what that is.

Maybe some decide that is per day and wonder why anyone would even talk about 15 minute days, another decides it's per level of the dungeon, per 10 rooms, another decides it's per entire adventure, and the last guy decides it's per session, cause he doesn't want to be bothered tracking hp and uses when his group only gets together every 8 weeks.

But if you make it "per day" then it's just a question of self-policing. If a wizard has 10 awesome things to do, some will use that in 5-10 different combats, and some will use it in the first 10 rounds, then advocate a rest. Or use most of them for long term bonuses and have enough for 2 rounds of ridiculous combat where they outshine anyone who isn't a spellcaster. And some groups will like or dislike different approaches, from one end of the spectrum to another.

Basically, you're talking about Trailblazer, in which everything recovers "per rest" If you can sit down and rest quietly for 15 minutes, you get (some of) your spells back, your rages, and you heal. It's a 15-minute night instead of a 15-minute day. It's better, but it's still not as good as just getting rid of the whole thing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There are two issues with the 15-minute adventuring day:

1. People getting all cute, knowing that they are players in an adventure, or that the DM doesn't want to have too many wandering monsters, or other such--and resting all the time for maximum effectiveness.
2. The feel of being a party of adventurers that is doing some dangerous thing, where the proper moment to rest is a critical decision at times, and you'd like to be able to push on when necessary.

The first part is mainly either a "social contract" issue or miscommunication between DM and players on expectation or perhaps baggage from previous adventures or even DMs. (Players in campaigns with "Killer DMs" can quite naturally turn into "turtles," for example.) The way to fix this is a mixture of talking about it to set expectations and some reasonable procedures by the DM to make resting all the time not a good idea--e.g. time pressures, wandering monsters, etc.

The second part is affected by those same kind of DM tricks, but if the mechanics are too blatant at leaving all of this up to the DM, it can start to get a bit hollow in certain playstyles. Maybe the group has talked about it, and has decided they are playing "big heroes," and they don't want to have to fool with wandering monsters or time pressures or the like. So the "social contract" says that resting after the first skirmish with the kobold scouts isn't going to happen because "heroes" would press on in that circumstance. And that can more or less work for some people, some times.

Everyone has a limit, though. Eventually you end up with a situation that didn't go totally awful, but did go much worse than expected. So now you are forced to talk about it in social contract terms, in the middle of the game, because that is what you base the decision on. Or, every player has to guess. And you get comments like, "There is no good reason why we shouldn't rest here, in game, but I guess we'll push on."

I have found, at least with my last three groups, that a little help from the mechanics can go a long way, here. I don't need a reason strong enough to curb a table full of powergaming, rules lawyering, DM mind-reading players trying to determine the optimum way to dominate the adventure while minimizing all possible risks. I wouldn't play with such a group. We do appreciate a "reason" good enough so that the players can tell themselves, "We press on because otherwise X." That way, even when there isn't time pressure or much risk of wandering monsters or any other of those things, we are encouraged to stay in the genre that we want to play.