Roughly the same resources, roughly equal footing, yes. Makes a certain amount of sense, doesn't it.
Radically different resources, say T1 vs T3, radically imbalanced.
T1 and T3 classes don't have inherently different resource systems. There are T1 and T3 Vancian casters and psionicists, the T1 casters simply have access to more spells/powers within their system. An incarnate who could reshape and rebind melds each turn as a swift action, a martial adept who knew every maneuver in the book, a binder who could bind 10 vestiges at once, and similar would be higher-tier than the existing T3 classes, not because they used a different system, but because they used the same system more effectively.
And that's my point. You seem to think that "using daily powers" inherently means "more powerful than any other resource system." It doesn't. It means it has different flavor and mechanical implications than other systems, that's it, and those different flavor and mechanical implications are preferable to a daily system to many people.
Use the one that works for you at the time.
"That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
Seriously, it is. Rather than presenting exploits with one fixed rationale, and baking that into the power at the expense of mechanical consistency, playability, and balance, 4e just has exploits that are mechanically functional and balanced. The represent what the player wants them to represent, in game. It's a minor exercise in creativity, and I suppose, rationalization. It lets one set of mechanics cover many different concepts of what a martial character can be.
Same goes for divine, and arcane (except, maybe, for the wizard).
Just use whatever explanation works at the time? Really?
Rogue: "We have them on the ropes, Mr. Fighter! Shoot them with your Swarm of Arrows Technique!"
Fighter: "No, sorry, Mr. Rogue, I can't do that right now."
Rogue: "But they're running away! Their backs are to you! You have all the opening you need!"
Fighter: "Why would you think I need an opening to use my special techniques?"
Rogue: "...um, because when we were fighting them before, you said you needed an opening to use it and that's why you didn't keep using the same technique on multiple people?"
Fighter: "No, no, right now I'm too tired to use the Swarm of Arrows Technique. Doesn't matter about the opening, I'm just too tired."
Rogue: "...but you can use the Finding the Horizon Technique on them just fine?"
Fighter: "Yep!"
Rogue: "...but only once?"
Fighter: "Yep!"
Rogue: "...and you'll be too tired afterwards to do it again, but not too tired for something else?"
Fighter: "Yep!"
Rogue: *facepalm*
You can go on and on about powers letting players get creative all they want, but there's a big difference between reflavoring a fire power to use a burst of light instead (because there's no mechanical or flavor difference worth noting) and trying to explain martial dailies, which
do have different implications based on the explanation you're using for why you can only use them once.
I'm not saying it's what you want. I'm saying that taking away martial dailies will leave the source under-powered and probably non-viable at many levels. And, yes, that'd make playing one boring much of the time.
See my notes, above, about modularity and the possibility of doing both.
And what part of "there are ways to make martial sources equally powerful that don't involve 1/day restrictions on powers" isn't getting through? I've mentioned several internally consistent, equally-powerful alternatives which you have seemingly dismissed out of hand as not being able to make the fighter powerful. Why, exactly, would a fatigue-based system where you can re-use a single power multiple times instead of each power once, or an opening-based system where you can re-use powers on flanked/helpless/whatever enemies, or something like that not be as good as a daily system?
Systems are just abstract mechanics. Making two things use different mechanics doesn't make them different in-game. If one character has a katana that does 1d10 damage, and another had a katana that does 1d8 brutal 2, they both have katanas, and, for that matter, they both do 5.5 points of average damage. The mechanical difference adds nothing, it's just an abstraction.
By the same token, a character can have a broadsword (+2, 1d10) or a warhammer (+2, 1d10) or a battleaxe (+2, 1d10), and the only mechanical difference is a keyword. For that matter, one character could have a 'Saber' (+2, 1d8, high crit, heavy blade) and another a 'Backsword' (+2, 1d8, high crit, heavy blade), and there's no mechanical difference, but they are historically different weapons - both modest 1-handed blades used by cavalry, though.
I'm not seeing the relevance to the daily power issue. Yes, mechanics are abstract. Yes, mechanically-similar things can be flavored in the same way. But when it comes down to it, you don't have one PC wielding a "dagger" (1d10 damage, high crit, heavy blade) or a "katana" (1d4 damage, finesse), because the mechanics don't match up with the in-game expression. You don't have to have a one-to-one mapping between flavor and mechanics, but whatever flavor you have has to match the mechanics or it won't make any sense.
With the exception of CON damage, which is a mechanic that simply doesn't exist in 4e, exploits do just about all of that, too.
I was referring to 3e maneuvers vs. 3e spells, not what 4e exploits are capable of, the point being that maneuvers and spells are defined by different mechanics and different ways of achieving the same mechanics, not just by superficial fluff on the same mechanics.
"No daily mechanics" would also mean no Vancian casting, which'd be lovely. The game would be even easier to balance if no one had dailies.
But that's not it. It's "No daily mechanics for the martial source, specifically." And, yes, that relegates the martial source to inferiority, hypothetical systems that the nostalgia-mandated 5e is unlikely to adopt notwithstanding.
The way you're arguing for it won't achieve that. What you will get is a 'unique play experience' of wondering why you're not playing a caster and being effective like everyone else.
Again, by all means, ask, argue for, even demand additional options for the martial classes, over and above martial dailies that are balanced with the returning vancian casting.
There are a lot of us playing 4e martial classes and quite enjoying have the peak power and 'plot power' of dailies. Please, stop trying to make us choose between continuing to play such characters, and adopting 5e.
That's fine, you can have the power of dailies. I (and the other "please no martial dailies" folks) just want a consistent, believe, and mechanically unique way to achieve that power.
It's just a lot harder work. I'd be much happier to play 3e with all T3 classes than I would 3e under most conditions. Hell, I like all the T3 classes I know - and that isn't true for any other tier.
I agree about the T3 classes all being enjoyable. And hey, the designers did it once (even if purely by accident
), they can do it again.
It's as much a narrative mechanic as anyting.
And that's a large source of the problem, I think. There are games and mechanics that attempt to actually explain the mechanics in-game; D&D is that sort of game, and most of the mechanics are like that. Even if the mechanics don't make any sense by real-world physics, they're internally consistent. There are games and mechanics that give players explicit narrative control over the game and their characters. When the first kind of game introduces narrative mechanics, they tend to be universal--everyone in 4e has action points and healing surges, for instance.
Yet 4e martial dailies look almost like an attempt to give one power source narrative mechanics while other power sources have internally-consistent or simulationist mechanics--and then they act like those narrative mechanics are simulationist. I would be perfectly happy if martial classes had something like fate points and the books said "Congratulations, as a martial hero you have plot protection, your powers are story-altering protagonist stuff." But they don't; they shove narrative and simulationist powers and resource schemes together and don't bother to differentiate between the two.
Deflect attacks into opponents
Pick up and throw enemies/Wind Blast
Attack without breaking stealth/Greater Invisibility
Immobilize creatures/Hold Person
Gain DR/Stoneskin
Make 4 attacks in a round/Haste
Deal Con damage/Cloudkill
Follow enemies when they try to flee/Expeditious Retreat
Detect invisible enemies with hearing/True Sight
Ummm... Nothing is things magic does in 3e generally. But all have something approaching equivalents. But I do like the Bo9S - I'm just disappointed how long it took 3.X to get there and how many people dislike the Book of "Weaboo Fitan Magic".
I should have been more clear there--the maneuvers accomplish the same general effects in ways that magic does not. Magic can push people back and move them around slowly, but not quickly move enemies in whatever direction you wish; magic can give you extra attacks in a full attack action, and let people attack using off-actions (swift and immediate), but not give you multiple attacks on an off-action; magic can deal ability damage, and inflict poisons, but not deal Con damage without poison; magic can increase your speed, and teleport you out of turn, but not let you 5-foot step out of turn or follow enemies immediately.
The point is that martial and magical things can accomplish the same general effects, but they do so in different ways. Magic can do lots of things martial stuff can't do as well, and martial stuff can do some things that magic can't do as well, and though magic has far too much of an advantage there, there
are things only martial stuff can do that set it apart thematically.
On the other hand they got there more by luck than judgement given quite how any classes don't balance with the tier 3 classes. And this is the significant problem for a game designer. You should be able to cram most classes at least into the same tier and that takes some pretty serious skill. Skill that the designers of 3.X didn't even come close to having (neither do the designers of PF). And even the 4e designers with Essentials didn't vary the pattern too much, and it took them a couple of years and a much more transparent system.
To be fair, the designers weren't trying to balance the 3e classes, they were trying to unify and upgrade the core while porting everything else over mostly unchanged. The fact that they
should have tried to change things to keep them in rough parity is obvious in hindsight (and was obvious a year after release as well), but it wasn't really their design goal to do that.
