D&D 5E 2/18/13 L&L column

[I'm A Banana]

But a cleric only makes it easier if we treat the availability of recharges as a fixed quantity (and hence the expenditure of a recharge as a cost).

The unit of measure is what happens in between full party recharges (in 5e, currently defined as the day). The actual unit of time is irrelevant. The relevant part is that a party restores all of their resources. In between these full recharges, the math takes over: a party can lose X resources and is expected to may Y successful die rolls (on average).

If a cleric makes it more difficult to wear down the party resources in that timeframe than any other class, then the cleric becomes more powerful than any other class.

The "quantity of recharges" then is 1. That's all that matters, because difficulty (and XP and progress toward goals) is only relevant in that place between recharges. How many full recharges the party gets is kind of irrelevant for the purposes of determining challenge.

Granting the party "extra" full recharges isn't a problem, the problem is if a single class can allow a party to go longer between full recharges. It's my impression that this is what several people desire out of the cleric.

 

[Ratskinner]

@FireLance gives a more interesting example, in terms of capacity to handle encounter budget - to my mind this just reinforces the absurdity of treating 5 x 100 XP encounters as equivalent to 1x 500 XP encounters. If the cleric can help disproportionately in the latter case, then I agree it is more powerful. But simply removing a rest period between the 4th and 5th 100 XP encounters is only a power-up if resting is a cost. And I'm not yet persuade that it is (in general; of course it can be in particular circumstances, and you can build in mechanics, say like AD&D's upkeep rules or Burning Wheel's cost-of-living rules that make resting a cost, but I haven't noticed any such rules in D&Dnext).

If this were the case....would someone eagerly playing a cleric be signalling the DM about desired play vis-a-vis encounters/rest? That seems...odd...to me.

 

[TwoSix]

If a cleric makes it more difficult to wear down the party resources in that timeframe than any other class, then the cleric becomes more powerful than any other class.

I just don't think I can agree with that. Shouldn't "power" be defined as "the ability to meet your goals with the least possible effort?" And I think the metagame goal is to make your characters more powerful as quickly as possible. Why else would bonus XP be a reward at all?

Look at 4e. A party of 3 strikers and 2 leaders might be able to do 3 encounters in 2 hrs before being have to rest. A party of 3 defenders and 2 leaders might be able to do 10 encounters before having to rest, but it could easily take 20 hrs of game time. Is that "more powerful"?

I do acknowledge that if the adventure path is "defeat 5-7 encounters" to advance (which is fairly typical, I think), and resting might set you back 3 encounters (patrols restocking, BBEGs moving around, etc), than the extra endurance can easily be key.

 

[Ratskinner]

The unit of measure is what happens in between full party recharges (in 5e, currently defined as the day). The actual unit of time is irrelevant. The relevant part is that a party restores all of their resources. In between these full recharges, the math takes over: a party can lose X resources and is expected to may Y successful die rolls (on average).

If a cleric makes it more difficult to wear down the party resources in that timeframe than any other class, then the cleric becomes more powerful than any other class.

I think here we're talking about one resource, but otherwise.

There is an actual mechanical effect, though. Although I've been talking about the "length" of an adventuring day, the adventuring day in 5e is actually measured in terms of XP, not the number of encounters.

A party without a cleric being able to take on 400 XP worth of challenges in an adventuring day while a party with a cleric is able to take on 500 XP worth of challenges in an adventuring day is similar to the cleric-less party being able to take on a CR 4 challenge while the party with a cleric is able to take on a CR 5 challenge in 3e, or EL 4 vs. EL 5 in 4e. That approach would mean that a party with a cleric is mechanically more powerful, and assuming all else is equal, it must mean that the cleric is more powerful than any other class.

To attempt a crude quantification, if a standard character has 10 units of effectiveness, and a 4-person party without a cleric has 40 units of effectiveness. I am arguing that a 4-person party with a cleric should still have 40 units of effectiveness (maybe the cleric "gives up" 6 units of effectiveness to grant his three companions an extra 2 units of effectiveness each). It seems that others are of the view that a 4-person party with a cleric should have 50 units of effectiveness (maybe the cleric gives up 5 units of effectiveness to grant his three companions an extra 5 units each).

I think this points to the real question (from a design point of view, anyway): "If healing is restricted to magical options with the cleric being the only purveyor, can the cleric be designed in a way that is both balanced and interesting to play?"

I think the answer is "yes", with the understanding that it means that the cleric class may appeal to fewer players and that other subsystems (HP & wounding, in particular) might need to alter to serve this goal. The cleric would likely be subject to a serious "de-gishing".* The goal would also be served by HP recovering more quickly (by default) and true "injury" being less common...

Which means you can make (to some extent) clerical necessity a dial by cranking HP recovery rate up or down. "For a more old-school feel, only recover HP after..."

 

[I'm A Banana]

I just don't think I can agree with that. Shouldn't "power" be defined as "the ability to meet your goals with the least possible effort?" And I think the metagame goal is to make your characters more powerful as quickly as possible. Why else would bonus XP be a reward at all?

In the mechanical game terms (ie: XP is the goal), a cleric that extends the period between full recharges does that -- lessens the effort required to meet the goal. Each challenge becomes less.

Look at 4e. A party of 3 strikers and 2 leaders might be able to do 3 encounters in 2 hrs before being have to rest. A party of 3 defenders and 2 leaders might be able to do 10 encounters before having to rest, but it could easily take 20 hrs of game time. Is that "more powerful"?

Yep! Each encounter the latter group faced was less of a challenge. In this hypothetical, I'd imagine for about 18 out of those 20 hours, the game was kind of dull, too. Not challenging, y'know? No risk!

I do acknowledge that if the adventure path is "defeat 5-7 encounters" to advance (which is fairly typical, I think), and resting might set you back 3 encounters (patrols restocking, BBEGs moving around, etc), than the extra endurance can easily be key.

The relevant metric is what happens between those full recharges -- how much can a full party accomplish before they have to rest again? If the cleric extends that (and others don't), the cleric becomes The Most Powerful Class.

 

[Ratskinner]

All that said, I think @FireLance is on to something in thinking about things in terms of encounter building - but to me that is just driving home the inanity of the assumption that the threat posed by a creature is independent of the company that that creature is keeping. <snip> Only D&Dnext is trying this harebrained scheme of balancing different player resource sets across some undertheorised "adventuring day".)

...could be that it all depends on how "linear" resource attrition is during a fight. Personally, I don't think it is very linear, D&D does things at too fine a level for that, but hey.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I just don't think I can agree with that. Shouldn't "power" be defined as "the ability to meet your goals with the least possible effort?" And I think the metagame goal is to make your characters more powerful as quickly as possible. Why else would bonus XP be a reward at all?

people are confusing most powerful with (arguably) most useful. Being the source of healing in the party does not make you the most powerful, but it may make you the most useful to some people.

 

[TwoSix]

In the mechanical game terms (ie: XP is the goal), a cleric that extends the period between full recharges does that -- lessens the effort required to meet the goal. Each challenge becomes less.

From my viewpoint, the mechanical goal is to maximize XP gain/out-of-game time. How many times I recharge is immaterial, unless it affects my XP gain. The goal is not to lessen effort within those challenges, unless, again, my effort proves not up to overcoming the challenge and this gaining XP.

Yep! Each encounter the latter group faced was less of a challenge. In this hypothetical, I'd imagine for about 18 out of those 20 hours, the game was kind of dull, too. Not challenging, y'know? No risk!

I don't conflate "encounter is less challenging" with "the group is more powerful." In MMOs, for example, a group with a tank and the rest of the groups as healers is probably never in real danger of dying, but will take hours and hours to complete anything. I don't think it fits the definition of "powerful".

The relevant metric is what happens between those full recharges -- how much can a full party accomplish before they have to rest again? If the cleric extends that (and others don't), the cleric becomes The Most Powerful Class.

I'm still not seeing why unless recharges are restricted. Power isn't minimizing challenges, it's maximizing effect.

 

[TwoSix]

people are confusing most powerful with (arguably) most useful. Being the source of healing in the party does not make you the most powerful, but it may make you the most useful to some people.

I'm not really confused by it. Anyone who's played MMOs knows that the healer is almost always the most useful person in the group.

 

[I'm A Banana]

From my viewpoint, the mechanical goal is to maximize XP gain/out-of-game time. How many times I recharge is immaterial, unless it affects my XP gain. The goal is not to lessen effort within those challenges, unless, again, my effort proves not up to overcoming the challenge and this gaining XP.

The thing about the timeframe in the real-world is that it's scalable and subjective. A party playing a one-shot may chew through 20 encounters in 3 hours with enough old hands and shortcuts. A new group may struggle with one. This has nothing to do with party effectiveness, and more to do with personal experience with the system and table social context (did the DM have to use the bathroom a lot? did the party start late because someone had to work?).

I don't conflate "encounter is less challenging" with "the group is more powerful." In MMOs, for example, a group with a tank and the rest of the groups as healers is probably never in real danger of dying, but will take hours and hours to complete anything. I don't think it fits the definition of "powerful".

It's powerful, it's just dull. Which is part of what happens when you opt to remove most of the challenge from your play experience.

I'm still not seeing why unless recharges are restricted. Power isn't minimizing challenges, it's maximizing effect.

Because of the way tabletop gaming is played, minimizing challenge and maximizing effect wind up being the same thing. If the DM doesn't want you to be bored for 18 hours, she's going to hurl bigger challenges at you, and then you get more XP, and lo, your hour of play has gotten you closer to the goal than someone else's hour of play.

In an MMO, challenges are static, but that's not the case in D&D: if you're not being challenged, the DM is going to step up the pressure.