Five-Minute Workday Article

[Bedrockgames]

I can't speak for thecasualoblivion, but for several posters on this (and related threads) there is a version of D&D that solves the problem of nova-induced imbalance, namely, pre-Essentials 4e, which gives every class more-or-less equal nova potential, and does not require any minimum number of combats or XP or rounds in order to preserve intraparty balance.

But the problem is that isn't the game many of us want to play. If they want to keep making that game, more power to them. I have said many times they should cut their losses and cater to 4e fans. But if their goal is to bring back people like myself, they cant go back to 4e. It isnt a game I have any interest in playing. I do think it would be nice if they created options which allowed you to layer that kind of game ontop of the core without forcing me to have it in my own campaign. Whether they can do that I dont know. As it is the core already has too many 4E components for my taste. Yet its clear those are not enough to satisfy most 4E fans (in fact it looks like they miss the point entirely based on what 4E fans say about them).

It does strike me they are genuinely struggling to understand the different groups that play D&D while also working to unite them somehow. That is an enormous goal. If they can make a game that both me and guys like TCO can sit down and enjoy, i will sing their praises. If they can't, at least they tried. Personally I hope the final product is tailored to my preference, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they went a direction that doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Harlekin]

While this statement may seem obvious, it isn't really true. Lets look at a 9th level 1e wizard load out (generic adventuring) from a game I played in (disclaimer: I don't have my books on me, so this might be a bit off, not much though):
5) Wall of Force
4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
2) Home-brew Magic Missile upgrade (1d4+2 per, longer range)X2, Web, Levitate maybe? Knock? Invisibility?
1) Magic MissileX2, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, One other.

Did he "win fights" when he unloaded?

Of course he could. Wall of force by itself wins fights by splitting the opposition into two manageable batches. Charm Monster takes out the big bad by itself, if he misses the save (~30% chance). Fireball and Web kill of swarms of small guys. So you still have an "I win" button for basically all encounter types. If you loaded up on multiple Charm Monsters and Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, you could be an even more effective single-fight winner. "Winning a fight" does not mean that you kill all opponents, just that you weaken them enough so that mop-up is trivial.

 

[Zaukrie]

My post doesn't doubt it happens, my post asks if you and your group don't think it is fun, why play that way? And if you are having fun, is it a bog issue or small issue? I have experienced this more in 2e, and personally, I think that it was playstyle driven, but we still had fun.

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[Patryn of Elvenshae]

5) Wall of Force
4) Charm Monster, Major Globe of Invulnerability (I always wanted Wall of Fire, sigh)
3) Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt (sometimes Fireball), Invisibility 10'
2) Home-brew Magic Missile upgrade (1d4+2 per, longer range)X2, Web, Levitate maybe? Knock? Invisibility?
1) Magic MissileX2, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, One other.

Did he "win fights" when he unloaded? No! He could let us escape an unwinnable fight (Wall of Force).

That's where you're not thinking tactically enough. That Wall of Force isn't just an escape button - it's a "Turn a single hard fight into two easy fights" button, by carefully dividing the battlefield.

This absolutely makes you "win fights."

If the fight has several quite powerful opponents, Charm Monster (after Prayers went up for the saving throw penalties) could be *really* helpful. It did save us a few times.

Yep.

A well placed Lightning Bolt (yay bouncing!) or Fireball could clear a swarm of ranged opponents, or do some nice softening up.

That also sounds like "winning a fight" to me, given the huge swing in incoming damage between having 6 enemy archers or wizards shooting / spelling you constantly and them all being dead (assuming, of course, that they aren't on the wrong side of the Wall of Force and therefore not a part of this combat).

But that is *3* spells. Only *1* of which might be viewed as something close to a fight winner, but if so, odds were the target would save.

But, from here, it looks like your wizard just spent 3/5ths of his most powerful spells. He can't do this again - and, like I said, it's likely that those spells did, indeed, win the fight for you.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And now we seem to be back in that strange world where 4e is not an edition of D&D, and so ought to have no bearing on D&Dnext design.

Not at all.

I respect certain things about 4Ed. I think there are certain things they did that ware better than in any other iteration of the game, such as the handling of the Warlock, the introduction of an action point mechanism, actual ritual magic (which should have been better implemented, but hey!) and making all stats matter to the battle optimizers.

Stronger than that, I actually like the game as a game; it IS fun to play. So I do think it's fair to include it as a source of design inspiration. (But I would say that anyway: prior revisions have had elements that had been inspired by competitor's games.)

I never said 4Ed wasn't an edition of D&D...but I have often said that it doesn't feel like one, and the magic system is a BIG reason why. The radical reworking of the magic system so that Vancian magic was, essentially, merely an appendix, is extremely off-putting to many.

Given the number of high-quality FRPGs that don't use Vancian magic at all, it is a puzzler for that subset who enjoy Vancian magic that D&D has to change one of its unique characteristics in order to appeal to players who already have other options.

Hence, the suggestion.

 

[Iosue]

This need to plan out is exactly the railroading that I am concerned about. I want each new scene to be the upshot of the previous one as actually resolved, in play. Not to be planned in advance in order to make my XP budget work.

Then don't do it.

Seriously, as near as I can tell, there will be absolutely nothing preventing you from DM your games just as you do in 4e. The only difference is that rather than design encounters in a vacuum, you have an added reference -- for a party this size, at this XP level, they'll probably need a rest after X rounds of combat. You don't have to plan anything in advance. It's just an extra tool.

But the consequence of this, as Mearls himself points out, is that the balance of effectiveness between casters and noncasters will be upset. Which, as Mustrum Ridcully has been pointing out, is the main problem with the 15 minute day in combination with variable nova potential across classes.

I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying. He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs." The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.

You see, the odd thing is this L&L is not meant to persuade 4e players. 4e players should already be aboard. It's the pre-4e folks he's trying to convince. Kamikaze Midget speaks wisdom:

If you skew the inputs, your outputs will be skewed. If you use a preponderance of minions, your controllers will feel mightier and your strikers and defenders will feel weaker. If you use a lot of brutes and artillery, your leaders and defenders might shine. With solos, strikers and defenders work their magic. If you have only one encounter in any given day, that day, the Daily abilities might dominate. If you always have 3+ encounters on each day, At-Wills and Encounters get better.If you use a variety, over time, it's not a significant deal: everyone does their thing and no one feels left out. If you run a game wherein your only encounters are ever solos, that's going to skew things.

In reality, a 4e DM wouldn't (generally) skew the game in such a way because 4e gives these tools for game design. And yet, it's not railroading to use those tools to avoid the above skewed situations. The adventure day budget is just in that line. It's taking something awesome in 4e and improving on it so that folks who don't care for a game where everyone has the same options to nova can play with it, too.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Not at all.

I respect certain things about 4Ed. I think there are certain things they did that ware better than in any other iteration of the game, such as the handling of the Warlock, the introduction of an action point mechanism, actual ritual magic (which should have been better implemented, but hey!) and making all stats matter to the battle optimizers.

Stronger than that, I actually like the game as a game; it IS fun to play. So I do think it's fair to include it as a source of design inspiration. (But I would say that anyway: prior revisions have had elements that had been inspired by competitor's games.)

I never said 4Ed wasn't an edition of D&D...but I have often said that it doesn't feel like one, and the magic system is a BIG reason why. The radical reworking of the magic system so that Vancian magic was, essentially, merely an appendix, is extremely off-putting to many.

Given the number of high-quality FRPGs that don't use Vancian magic at all, it is a puzzler for that subset who enjoy Vancian magic that D&D has to change one of its unique characteristics in order to appeal to players who already have other options.

Hence, the suggestion.

At the same time, many people thought when 4E dumped Vancian magic "Finally, we get a magic system that doesn't suck!" and these people have less an zero desire to go back. The numbers of the different attitudes can be quibbled over, but you can't dismiss the not wanting to go back attitude out of hand.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I disagree that that is what Mearls is saying. He says, "The important thing from an R&D perspective is that both extremes, and all the points in between, are options for DMs." The point is that, just as monster roles and Encounter XP budgets gave the DM finer control over adventure design, so will the adventure day rules give DMs finer control over pacing.

Except that he defines deviating from his X rounds of combat per day scenario as throwing balance out the window and letting casters dominate. What I want is game balance that isnt dependent on the DM being railroaded into having X combats or combat rounds per day.

That isn't DM control. That is DM can do it, but it'll suck.

 

[Kraydak]

Of course he could. Wall of force by itself wins fights by splitting the opposition into two manageable batches. Charm Monster takes out the big bad by itself, if he misses the save (~30% chance). Fireball and Web kill of swarms of small guys. So you still have an "I win" button for basically all encounter types. If you loaded up on multiple Charm Monsters and Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, you could be an even more effective single-fight winner. "Winning a fight" does not mean that you kill all opponents, just that you weaken them enough so that mop-up is trivial.

But the wizard *could not* win fights by himself. The party had 3 core fighters, and a varying set of lower level/henchmen fighters. Were there times we might have wanted to exchange one of the fighters for a high level wizard? Yes. The high level wizard for a fighter? Also, yes. In practice, the balance (fighter heavy) was pretty good. In fights, the fighters dominated, with the wizard acting as support. If the fight was scary, or the tactical situation *sucked*, the wizard would get involved. But fundamentally, we brought the wizard around for the strategic utility. Teleport for long distance travel. Invis 10' radius. Dispel Magic. Fly. We didn't bring him along for combat.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It was actually a really obvious problem in the computer games, if you've played those. Though UI problems in, say, Pool of Radiance, made it more _painful_ to rememorize spells so it was slightly less obvious.

I thought about posting something along these lines several days ago, but then I deleted my post because I didn't want to get into a videogames argument.

But, since you brought it up, Pool of Radiance (a 1E-based game) was absolutely affected by the 15-minute adventuring day, especially at low levels. Okay, technically, it was the hour-long adventuring day, but 30 minutes of that was leaving town and walking into the Slums.

At low levels, you just didn't have the resources to continue on past 1 or, maybe, two fights. Your Magic-User had a single sleep spell - which could win one figh for you. But your cleric, similarly, only had a single (or just a couple; my memory fails me!) Cure Light Wounds. So, if one of your fighter-types got tagged by a monster, that was it - you were out of healing resources for the day. At which point, it's silly to continue on with the adventure, because of the risk of running into wandering monsters on the way back to town.

So you walk into the Slums, fight once or twice, and return to town - the 15-minute adventuring day.