Why is the Vancian system still so popular?

[eamon]

2) If you can use all or almost all of your resources in a small number of encounters, you can nova those encounters down far outside your theoretical average!

PC Resource consumption is a critial factor, and I want it to matter.

If all the important resources "reload" every encounter; then every encounters starts off rather similar. It makes it that much harder to provide some exciting diversity. Some of the most memorable moments in any campaign I've seen arose from unusually (un)balanced encounters. Sure, it's a little harder to DM, and I think that the degree to which its a good thing varies from group to group (so some flexibility here is a good thing), but I think that the wrong solution to the 5 minute adventuring day is to just make almost everything important recharge every encounter.

Also, to some extent, this kind of "spike" is unavoidable anyhow, at least if your game is a little freeform. Beating the odds - or, putting it dramatically, being heroic - often means being prepared. This kind of preparation (a trick, a strategy, timing, the right tools) is a really fun thing, and it's almost inherently impossible to just translate that kind of preparedness across encounters - and there you have the seed of a 5 minute adventuring day.


I agree that being a spellcaster shouldn't inevitably imply 95% downtime and 5% overpowered action. I just don't think that the solution to the 5 minute adventuring day is to simply require all resources to recharge by the encounter. If that's the solution, I think it's worse than the problem.

Also, class diversity makes things interesting. Differing power recharge rates cater to different playstyles and provide for some tension.

You can avoid the 5 minute forcibly by taking away the choices that let the players fall into that trap. But the best solution is inevitably going to involve the story, the world, and the DM.

I mean, seriously, a story in which it's OK and consequence-free to just rest for a whole day after every encounter isn't what I'm aiming for anyhow.

Isn't there some way we can mitigate this problem somewhat without going whole hog and just getting rid of daily powers?

 

[keterys]

Some resources should certainly not be encounter-based.

I did mention a daily or per-level emergency button.
And a consumable - healing potion.
And nothing says they can't have mechanics for pushing past their limitations, that give lingering penalties.
Or even that their maximum pool of points degrades over time, as they continually exhaust themselves.

But any system that relies on modifying the story or PC complacence to moderate the power of a significant slice of the system has serious problems. So if one or more classes are entirely or almost entirely daily based, and one or more aren't... then it's a failure.

Of course, you could go the other way and give the fighter a similar set of daily resources (bursts of adrenaline, perfect opportunities, whatever), but I thought that was _more_ contentious.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

The explanation is really just "because the mechanics say so" it works easily for magic, because magic is arbitrary. In fiction, heroic feats are also arbitrary, so it works fine for martial, as well, if the game is emulating fiction, rather than reality.

Since magic doesn't exist in reality, I'm not sure what else the game could be emulating.

No, it's not "just because the mechanics say so," it's because some people want martial exploits to be metagame mechanics. You don't have to have magic with names and martial stuff without; take a look at Wheel of Time, where the master swordsmen have evocative names for all their maneuvers (Heron Wading Through the Rushes, Parting the Silk, and such) while the channelers weave elements together to achieve what they want and only a few very powerful effects have specific names.

As long as you treat mechanics as having some actual manifestation in-game, it doesn't matter whether you call something magic "the fireball spell" or "a spell to make a large explosion of flame" or whether you call a maneuver "the Whirlwind Attack maneuver" or "that thing you do where you swing your sword around and hit everyone around you." They can be equally arbitrary or equally non-arbitrary. That doesn't happen, however, if you treat one or the other as purely a metagame construct.

Oh nonsense. "I'm going to automatically get exactly the opening I need for this technique if I simply attack all out for six seconds when I wouldn't if I used a Ruby Nightmare Blade - and the same opening never comes up twice in a row"? What? And that makes even less sense of Desert Wind or Setting Sun.

To me the class that worked well for "openings in combat" was the Crusader. To the point that I wanted to play a White Raven Crusader for precisely that reason.

The crusader was better at that, but the warblade does it fairly well too. And in a system where the rogue can flank someone with no facing and hit some undefined "weak spot" for massive damage, that does a pretty good job of mimicking the ebb and flow of combat without getting into annoying fiddly bits.

It comes down to level of abstraction and edge cases, really. Evasion is a good example: the flavor matches the mechanic well, and it works most of the time, but you have the edge cases of "rogue vs. fireball in 20-foot wide room" and "rogue can't actually move out of area but is fine." The fact that when pressed the mechanic doesn't make as much sense doesn't mean it doesn't work in most cases. On the other hand, you have a mechanic like 3e Diplomacy that doesn't work well: at a certain point, you can just talk to someone for 6 seconds and they become your devoted follower. Even without any edge cases, the flavor (excellent negotiator) isn't really close to the mechanic (automatic mind control).

The ToB maneuvers are similar. They work well most of the time, with the occasional edge case that pulls you out of things just like Evasion can. I want to stress again that ToB is not my ideal implementation of martial maneuvers either; it just happens to be a common reference point that lends itself well to better WSoD, strikes a good balance between immersion and playability, and is a good starting point to be improved upon.

If he strikes accurately enough... But seriously, you've just undermined your own question due to the Attack of Opportunity Rules. What the barbarian needs to to is be able to get in position to threaten them all - if they try to run away then he's going to be attacking their backs anyway. The answer doesn't revolve round whether he has a recharged close burst 1 power, it revolves round positioning. If he has a CB1 power, he might get a second swing at them.

Funny thing is, that actually argues for the 3e (or 4e Essentials) way of doing things. An AoO-spec fighter in 3e, and presumably a Slayer in 4e, can use everything he has on any attack, whether a normal attack or an AoO, and sometimes even has extra benefits on an AoO. So getting 2 AoOs is essentially the same as having 2 more attacks on your turn (with the exception that they're triggered, of course; "I can definitely kill all 4" and "I can definitely kill 2, then I can kill the others if I'm positioned right" have different tactical implications).

In contrast, a 4e fighter's AoOs are likely not good as his exploits damage-wise, even with Combat Superiority and Heavy Blade Opportunity. The extra [W]s and riders can make a big difference, so "daily exploit that hits 2 people" and "make an AoO against 2 people" aren't the same thing.

 

[Essenti]

Rather than relying solely on front loaded resources like vancian dailies or per encounter abilities, I think the game would really benefit from some form of resource that builds up during an adventuring day. Something that resets to zero or a low number after a rest. This would create a resource trade-off for resting, one that gives the players a reason not to favor the 15minute adventuring day.

Something I've been working on for little while and will be testing in a B/X game that is starting next week is using Motivation Tokens. (As a side note: I play multiple editions of the game, this week is 3.5, the week after next is 4.0, and I'm hoping we start up a 1e or 2e game again soon... they are all fun to play)

The following ideas are just what I have roughed in at the moment and will likely require tweaking until I figure out what works and what doesn't during play.

A fighter gains a motivation token each time they incapacitate or kill an opponent. Thieves gain a token for each time they pull off a backstab or for each trap they disable. Spell casters earn a token after casting a spell. Basically, I'd award tokens for doing something that exemplifies your character class.

Anyone can spend a token to improve their defenses for a round.

Fighters and thieves (and because its basic, halflings, dwarves and elves) can spend a token to add damage to an attack or perform a maneuver without any penalties (like trip, disarm, bull rush, etc.)

Spell casters (including elves, gotta love basic) can spend a token to increase the range, area of effect, duration, or power of a spell.

No one can spend more than two points of motivation during a combat round. Motivation is reset back to zero after a rest.

What I am hoping to accomplish is giving the players a resource based reason to push ahead, one that is actually beneficial to them in some fashion.

At any rate, I don't as yet know if my proposed experiment will actually achieve what I want it to, although I do believe it has some potential. I'm sure something vaguely similar to this existing in a core book, even as a module, may induce nerd-stroke in particularly sensitive individuals. But I still think adding a resource that builds over the course of an adventure would be an interesting feature to see included in 5E.

 

[SLOTHmaster]

(Rightly or wrongly) I've always felt that DND was a system of rules that tried to approximate the real world chance of succeeding at manual tasks. Magic notwithstanding. AEDU does nothing to simulate the real world as I see it. If anything, I feel that AEDU reverses the situation; now the story has to approximate the mechanics, instead of the mechanics approximating the story.

This is honestly my biggest issue with AEDU. Yes it balances well, but it just doesn't feel right to play.

 

[pemerton]

The 3E you describe is, in fact, pretty darn good at handling a game with the tone of the 2E D&D novels (and related fiction), as well as the implied tone (but not the reality) of many 2E adventures.

I don't know the novels, and the only 2E adventures I know are the OA ones (which I've run bits and pieces of in Rolemaster) and a couple of Planescape ones - Dead Gods struck me as too railroady for words, but I have used one or two bits from Tales of the Infinite Staircase.

Are you saying that gonzo wounds/healing and spell, in combination with gritty spells and combat manoeuvres, is a fair description of 3E, and is the vibe of those books/adventures? Or do they have a different vibe, which my description of 3E is missing (and this second thing is quite possible, because my description of 3E is also an explanation of why I've not played much of it, and is therefore not based on a lot of play experience with the system).

One of the interesting things about 5E, if they pull it off, is that instead of merely being a reaction to 4E, it appears they are trying to be a reaction to the whole past history of the hobby--not a blind clone or copy, but a reaction, with all that implies.

I must admit to not yet having a very good handle on what D&Dnext will be like.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, I remember that one. I suspect that same encounter is how one of our players ended up with a familiar... which turned out 7 levels later to actually be someone else's familiar... i.e. a spy!

That sounds kind of cool when you write it out. Was it good or bad in actual play?

Aside from the multiclassing and hybrid cleric, you have what I believe to be the best party composition available:
2 defenders, 1 of everything else.

Compare that to our 1 incompetent defender and 4 strikers... big difference

<snip>

Perhaps then, part of the difference is that your group burns through their resources more slowly. Thus putting emphasis on resources works well for them. For us, putting emphasis on resources just shows us how screwed we are after the 3rd battle.

You're making your party sound almost comically inept! Why is your defender so incompetent?

As to burning through resources, sometimes they will do it quite quickly (as far as daily powers go, for example) but othertimes can be very conservative. And they can shift their style of engagement fairly effectively too, amping up the aggression or the defence as the situation seems to demand.

After our session yesterday, the party has almost no dailies left (the wizard has Wall of Fire, the fighter Jackal Strike, and that may be it). The fighter and the paladin are around half their surges gone, and the other PCs have used probably 2 or 3 each (so probably one third gone). But each PC has just gained an action point, and the paladin's AC has increased by 1, due to his Meliorating Armour. They are currently beseiged in a temple with an army of hobgoblins outside (mechanically, I would be run the army as a mixture of minions and phalanx swarms).

They are not sure how to escape, but are tossing up between an Underdark retreat, using Phantom Steed to try and summon flying mounts (they have plenty of components, but would need a 15+ on the d20 roll), or just fighting their way out.

I would expect the fight to be fairly challenging, but with a fully bevy of action points, plus encounter powers back, I would expect them to be able to do it! They are definitely hard to take down. (The attempt I think would have to be resolved as a mix of combat and skill challenge.)

 

[pemerton]

Once again, if the fighter exploits were explicitly metagame and affected metagame things only, I wouldn't mind at all.

I understand that exploits are not explicitly metagame. In this way I think of them as like hit points - depending on one's take, they are either flexible or incoherent!

But what I'm missing, I think, is why you think they can't be treated as metagame. In what way do they not affect metagame things only? Maybe there are some rogue powers that I should have in mind but am forgetting about (I'm not really up on my 4e rogue knowledge), but for fighters they're basically more attacks, more damage and more knockback/down, and for rangers they're basically more attacks, more damage and more movement.

The damage boosts and knockback/down strike me as bascially dice manipulation - analogous to using an explicitly metagame option to reroll or boost damage dice - and the additional attacks seem to me basically to be manipulations of the action economy, which as I've said seems to be obviously metagame (because of it's stop motion implications if treated otherwise).

It's not a purely metagame thing. Goblins can run 120 feet in 6 seconds. A 6th level barbarian with pounce can make 2 attacks on a charge and can charge 80 feet in 6 seconds. "From where you are standing now, is it possible for you to kill all four goblins before they run out of the [dungeon/canyon/etc.]?" is a question that that barbarian can answer purely with in-game knowledge: Yes, he can run and attack that fast, and if he strikes accurately enough he can down them all, because he knows he can charge that fast and he knows what he can do.

What you describe here might make more sense in a system of continuous action - B/X and 1st ed AD&D were something like that, I played a version of 2nd ed AD&D that was something like that (Combat and Tactics, I think - and even core 2nd ed initiative was continuous action also, wasn't it?).

But in a turn-based system, it's more complex than that, because the barbarian's ability to catch the goblins depends not just on relative speeds but on who goes first in the initiative sequence. And brings into play the minutiae of the charge rules. And we haven't mentioned action points yet.

And that is even before we bring in the vagaries of the dice. So, in the fiction, the barbarian knows that on a good day he can catch and kill those goblins. Mechanically, maybe he can if he has an unexpended power and rolls well with his attacks and damage. And the player playing the PC has many ways to RP this, depending on the resources s/he has to hand, from "Don't worry, they're as good as dead" to "I'm not feeling that lucky, better get your bows and crossbows out if you want to stop them!"

I mean, this exact scenario has come up multiple times in my game (involving the ranger-archer rather than a barbarian). One time he had Biting Volley left, and killed the fleeing bad guy on a crit on a 19. Another time he had only Twin Strike left, but still managed to crit (on a 20) and bring down the fleeing bad guy. The RP and narration didn't have to change. I don't think he's yet brought down a fleeing bad guy using Combined Fire (a single arrow as a reaction to an allies ranged or area attack) but I could easily see it happening - the ranger has already acted, then the bad guy flees, but the wizard attacks with a readied Magic Missile and the ranger follows up with Combined Fire. The narration wouldn't have to change.

You don't have to have magic with names and martial stuff without

<snip>

As long as you treat mechanics as having some actual manifestation in-game, it doesn't matter whether you call something magic "the fireball spell" or "a spell to make a large explosion of flame" or whether you call a maneuver "the Whirlwind Attack maneuver" or "that thing you do where you swing your sword around and hit everyone around you." They can be equally arbitrary or equally non-arbitrary. That doesn't happen, however, if you treat one or the other as purely a metagame construct.

I don't think I get this either. Why do encounters and dailies as metagame stop named martial manoeuvres? In the fiction, the fighter PC performs "Whirlwind Attack" - but on some occasions, its mechanical impact is limited to one target. (Or, if that seems too much trouble and/or too inane, the fighter player can use Passing Attack, say, as one manifestation of his/her PC's Whirlwind Attack, although if there are 3 or more adjacent enemies it will only ever hit two of them.)

you've just undermined your own question due to the Attack of Opportunity Rules. What the barbarian needs to to is be able to get in position to threaten them all - if they try to run away then he's going to be attacking their backs anyway. The answer doesn't revolve round whether he has a recharged close burst 1 power, it revolves round positioning. If he has a CB1 power, he might get a second swing at them.

I think I agree with this, at least to the extent that the OA rules are part of the mechanics that break down the rigidiy of the turn sequence, and thereby (i) increase verisimilitude (it's not a stop motion world) and (ii) make more room for a range of non-process-simulation understandings of what is going on with limited use martial powers.

In the fiction, at least as I see it, there is no great difference between these mechanically different alternatives: (i) the goblins going first, the barbarian going second, giving chase and taking down only 1 goblin with a normal charge, or (ii) the barbarian going first, closing to threaten the goblins, the goblins then running away and the barbarian killing one with an OA but missing the others, or (iii) the goblins going first, the barbarian going second, giving chase and then attacking with a close burst charge power but killing only 1 goblin while missing the others.

In contrast, a 4e fighter's AoOs are likely not good as his exploits damage-wise, even with Combat Superiority and Heavy Blade Opportunity. The extra [W]s and riders can make a big difference, so "daily exploit that hits 2 people" and "make an AoO against 2 people" aren't the same thing.

But there are so many moving parts here - for example, what does hit point loss for goblins equate to in the fiction?

Imagine in a Fate Point game, the fighter player knows that if s/he spends a Fate Point on an attack it will probably kill a typical goblin, but if s/he doesn't it probably won't. What story does s/he have his/her PC tell, within the fiction, about his/her goblin-killing capabilities? Maybe "I might one-shot it if I'm lucky!" Well, the 4e fighter player can say the same thing - after all, the bonus damage on a crit from a lucky OA attack roll will probably compensate for the extra dice that an encounter or daily power might have generated.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Are you saying that gonzo wounds/healing and spell, in combination with gritty spells and combat manoeuvres, is a fair description of 3E, and is the vibe of those books/adventures? Or do they have a different vibe, which my description of 3E is missing (and this second thing is quite possible, because my description of 3E is also an explanation of why I've not played much of it, and is therefore not based on a lot of play experience with the system).

The former one is it. It's not a perfect fit, mind, but it is pretty close. The railroading is often part of it, though you could get the same vibe in an adventure with relatively little rails. I hesitate to use the term here, but it is almost a "pretense" of grit, by the way hit point narration and arms are handled, but with magic one way to bail out of a bad situation, and talk or resourse manipulation the other.

I'd use a specific example to illustrate, but it has been awhile since I read any stories of that type, and they tend to all blend together in my head.

 

[pemerton]

I'd use a specific example to illustrate, but it has been awhile since I read any stories of that type, and they tend to all blend together in my head.

You're not making me regret my lack of familiarity with this particular (sub-)genre!